This chapter has gone through months of editing. Character placement really matters. We're nearing the endgame, finally.


Look at you. A pitiful excuse of a God.

She woke up violently, her lungs filled with a viscous, coppery substance that she choked and spluttered on but her eyes were too busy adjusting to the darkness around her. What was happening? She was outside, struggling to move, with Max demanding his protection of her, but that was a few moments ago. She...she wasn't dreaming, was she? She wasn't hallucinating. Was she?

Alias didn't have time to speculate, she was somewhere unknown with lights forbidden; she breathed and brought the fiery haze to her face, the violet flames barely lighting up the darkness that engulfed. Her surroundings were unusually cold until her eyes fell onto a warm body a few metres away and she went to shuffle towards it, her bound hands stopping her. She looked up and widened her eyes; it was just like that vivid nightmare, her powers tethered and her muscles heavy. Judging by the signature of the body, he was still breathing but whatever happened to him she couldn't understand. "Max?" she whispered loudly, trying her best to lean close to him while struggling against her restraints. "Max." He wasn't responding and she was running out of time. Whoever put them in here, without any of them having a clue, could be lurking around without a signature to detect them. And with Jason's signature barely in reach made her a bit more on edge. She didn't like the feeling of being one step behind.

She made out four walls around them, one including a glass wall, with a single door marking their exit. No cameras, cameras were smudges of orange and purple, but Max's sniper rifle was resting on the wall by the door that made Alias question even further if their adversary wanted to kill them or let them have a fair chance at death.

Peering down at Max again, Alias used her foot to try and nudge him awake and bared her teeth as sudden pain quaked at her wrists. "Max, wake up, please…" she nudged him harder but what felt like his arm flopped back onto the floor and his signature maintained. She let her weight drop back in defeat and instead used the haze to find exactly where they were but the bindings weren't helping, she was surprised the haze was blazing at all. Alias had to try; she relaxed and let her mind wander to the many signatures that blurred them all together and frowned at the one outside the room. They were alone but propped onto a chair, their signature lower than usual and opposite the glass wall. Lower than usual.

Oh no.

"Breaker?" she called out. "Breaker, are you awake?"

"...Alias...help me…"

"Breaker," she fought against her restraints. "Oh Breaker, what have they done to you? Breaker, what have they done?"

"...please...help―" Alias fought harder, wobbling to her feet and using her foot to try and snap the chains off the wall. "Alias, please…"

"I'm coming, Breaker, I'm coming!"

"Now, Alias, you continue fighting like that and you'll end up killing Christian, won't we Christian?" Alias stopped. No, it couldn't be. Before she could reply, the lights turned on and she flinched away at the sudden brightness but when she recovered her blood ran cold. Breaker was sitting there, his limbs strapped to a chair with blood covering every inch of visible skin and tears mixing on his cheeks. He looked so beat-up, possible cracks to his cheekbones and the impairment of his speech indicating a broken jaw. Even the small patches of heat all over his body meant breaks and cracks everywhere else and her heart sank. Alias finally met eyes with the speaker, and rage began festering at her chest.

"...please…please don't...kill me..."

"Nightwing's swart," Rhys smiled as she held onto Breaker's shoulders. "But he couldn't save Christian. Your powers are what make you unique and I could never do it justice, but it works. Tae loves giving me different abilities but they're unreliable, so I guess I had to go old-school on Christian."

"Rhys―"

"No, I'm not done. You're lucky that Max was there to save you, his annoying little telepathic wall prevents me from using you. Even Rex is having a hard time tapping into your head now. A shame he can't stop me from what I'm about to do; his ability has an unfortunate drawback."

"Why are you doing this, Rhys? He hasn't done anything wrong to you."

"It's your fault he's here. And because it's my job. Unlike you, I follow my orders and do so without emotions getting in the way." Rhys pressed forward, earning a small whimper from Breaker, before leaning off and circling around to confront Alias. "I used to be jealous of you, you know? My brother, he was so in love with you and I could never understand why. Wasn't sure if he was using you or using me."

"Sinclair isn't a liar. You were reckless―"

"And you weren't?"

"I was realistic."

Rhys shook her head as she moved away, "You should've stayed dead."

"You make it seem as if I brought myself back to life. I never had a choice."

"No, but whoever was stupid enough thought you did. But I'm here waffling, aren't I Christian?" She stood beside Breaker and crossed her arms, "Now, how should I kill you? I still have a little bit of cold in me. Oh! I have an idea: I'll kill you the same way my brother killed Alias. I am the sentimental type."

"No!" Alias kicked the glass, the unusual durability making her foot bounce off, and she tried again. "No! Don't do it! Rhys, don't do it!"

"And this is why Tae can break you over and over again," Rhys shrugged. "You simply have a heart." A gut-wrenching scream tore out of Alias's throat as Rhys placed a hand on Breaker's chest and he immediately gagged and struggled with his limited movement, his eyes trying to find Alias but couldn't help but roll to the back of his head. No. No no no. This wasn't happening. This...this wasn't happening. No.

Alias pleaded again and again, booting away at the glass until she buckled back and fell onto the floor, her throat burning raw and tears spilling down her face. This wasn't happening, she was choking back tears and watching one of the people she depended on and depended on her seep away from reality from her very eyes and Rhys was smirking through the entire process. Even as Alias's struggles lessened and Breaker stopped moving, his heat signature falling, Rhys casually fixed her tousled hair and glared at the Meta Mercenary who retreated to sobbing against the glass. "You did this, Alias. The second you leave that room is the second you're ready to face death."

"No." Alias slowly shook her head and looked up at Rhys, the Syndicate lieutenant taken aback by the haze that flushed into her hair. Her hands were trembling and her voice was hoarse from all those tears, but she was assertive. She was...fighting. "I've already faced death. You, Rhys Sinclair, have yet to feel the chill of death. Yours won't be a flitting thing. That I can promise you."

Rhys hesitated and laughed. "Fighting words, Alias. We'll be waiting." When Rhys left the room, the haze withered out. Alias collapsed onto the floor and could only stare at Breaker's frozen corpse, his lips glazed over in violet ice and his eyes blended to a cool shade of white. She couldn't stop shaking, bringing her hands to her chest, and attempted to stop herself from crying. What she didn't realise was the warm body that finally woke up with a grunt and gathered information about the situation, his two-tone eyes looking around until it fell on Breaker.

"Holy shit...Al, what―" Max stopped when he saw Alias's current state and said no more; he shuffled over to her and wrapped his arms around her, cupping her face as a means to comfort her. He wasn't gonna question what happened, Alias's arms bound and a man unfamiliar strapped to the chair seemingly frozen from the inside was all he needed. She couldn't stop Rhys, and her quiet sobs on his shoulder pained Max even more. "Al―"

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" Her voice cracked as she yelled against his chest, her body heaving and shuddering as the next waves of angered tears flooded out of her. Was this what it felt like, to lose someone you loved? Every memory of them summoning emotions you never know you could feel? Regret. Guilt. Shock. Sorrow. If the thought of losing Jason wasn't enough, the emptiness burning at her chest would haunt her for the rest of her life.

"They're all gonna pay. Every single fucking one of them, you have my word. Even if it―"

"No," she shook her head. "Not you too. I've had enough, Max. I can't...I can't do this anymore. I can't…"

"We don't have any other choice, Al. It's us or them."

"It could've been us! It could've been me! I don't understand. Why am I still here? Why has Sinclair decided to keep me alive? I am of no value to him."

Max perked up, "That is weird. What's weirder is that your boyfriend's not here. We were all together...the last thing I remember was providing cover and...shit."

"What?"

"I knew he was hiding something, that slippery bastard. No offense."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Your Red Hooded boyfriend is who. Why do you think we're here and he's not? Jason Todd is a man of many secrets even if you think he's told you everything. Do you believe he's told you everything?"

Alias narrowed her eyes, "As much as I want to trust him...no. I don't. He's been adamant on knowing everything there is about me without giving me the chance to learn about him. I know his name, his death and parts of his history but that's it. I've seen enough scars on his body to know he's fought more times than he's died but...he wouldn't do this to Breaker―Christian. No, Max, he wouldn't…"

"Not him. Syndicate."

"But he's not Syndicate, he's…" She bit her lip. "He's lost. He's still suffering from trauma and he's trying his absolute best―"

"I don't know, Al. You're giving his trauma too much credit, you forget he was a former Robin and The World's Greatest Detective taught him everything. Whatever he's doing just got Christian killed."

Alias frowned, "But I can save him. I...I can save him, Max! My healing. My healing is temporal, I can bring him back―"

"But you've never brought back the dead. If it's of any consolation, your healing is flawed."

"But...but I have to at least try―"

"Al, we have to go." Max gently combed her hair out of her face and frowned slightly. She looked tired. "Any idea of where we...oh. We're in AK's HQ, aren't we?"

"Breaker...he was always the bomb. He was always here, waiting for someone to save him." She looked at Breaker sadly. "Waiting for me to save him...that's why we were brought here."

"But why?"

Alias sniffed, "No, I can't stay here. We have to go. Max, please, get me out of these cuffs. We have to find them, we―" There was a hard pounding on the door that diverted their attention, Alias's tears burning her cheeks and Max thought on his feet and slid to the door, snatching his sniper rifle and disengaging the mechanism that kept them together. With one pistol fully loaded, he positioned himself lying on his back with his feet up on the doorframe, his iron sight pointing at the average height of where a head would be. She narrowed her eyes at the door and the haze fizzed back to life, lighting her pink hair in shades of violet and blue. "Grayson," she said breathlessly. "It's Grayson...he's here…"

"Blake?" Nightwing echoed from outside the door. "Oh God, I thought you were―"

"Now, hold on," Max tightened his grip. "How do we know it's him, Al?"

"It's him...it has to be."

"I'm not hearing the how."

"Rex isn't in my head anymore. It's him." Max sighed and rolled backwards until he was standing and fired a round at the metal loop that kept Alias's chains to the wall, her body sinking to the floor as the cold spark that would usually ignite without a hassle was taking a toll on her body. Her entire body was sore, heavy, groggy and she could feel the haze swarming her entire scalp. It was uncomfortable, even as she found herself in Grayson's arms and back on her feet she felt...dread. It couldn't be true, right? Jason couldn't be hiding anything else, could he? No, he wouldn't, Alias trusted him with her life. "Gray…"

He noticed the haze, "Are you okay?"

"I am now" She abandoned the haze and smiled weakly at him and hugged him earnestly, using whatever strength returned to her arms to pull him close to her. "I've missed you. Oh, I've missed you so much. I thought I lost you."

Grayson chuckled, "I'm never too far away, Blake." She pulled back and cupped his face, understandably confused as to why his mask was barely hanging on and Grayson gently pulled her hands away. "It was damaged and I don't usually travel with spares...it's fine." Then he smiled. "You look awful."

"That should be the least of our problems but yes, I probably do look awful. But how did you find us?"

"Radio chatter about vigilantes trying to hijack a prison convoy suddenly vanishing into thin air. Also Rex tipped me."

"Wait, why would he do that?" Max questioned him. "I thought he's one of the bad guys now."

"He feels indebted to you, he knew trying to contact me would compromise his situation with Sinclair but it was his choice to make. It was the least he could do."

"Rex…" she spoke to herself and her eyes drifted onto Breaker's body, Grayson following her and holding onto Alias a bit tighter. For her to not be able to save his life meant that they were dealing with Syndicate, an organisation that was more than her, more than all of them. He'd bared witness time and time again to what Alias was capable of but by the wetness of her cheeks and the soreness of her voice, she couldn't stop the death of a friend. It hurt knowing that. "We have to find Jason, destroy Syndicate and everything it stands for. That's the only way I can find peace, the only way I can get rid of my nightmares."

"Can you find him?"

"I can try...my head feels like it's about to explode. It's like...interference. There's a small team in the main lobby but neither Sinclair nor Jason are here. Either Rex is trying to emulate his signature or Sinclair has found a way to do that."

"He can do that?"

"He's a sadist but his true abilities are adaptive. The only abilities he can't use are mine thanks to Arcadius so instead he gives them to his sister but even she can't use them for too long. That's the only advantage I have over him, but his pain manipulation is far-reaching and can be embedded into objects. That's how he can stop me from using my powers: through pain."

"That's cheating," Nightwing remarked with a disapproved look on his face and Max nodded in agreement. "So now what?"

Alias peeled away from Nightwing and pressed her hands on the glass, turning her guilt and remorse into rage that coursed sub-zero through her veins, "We fight."

"Against an unforgiving devilin a man's body?" Max retorted. "Al, you can't be serious. You're not 100 percent." Nightwing nodded.

"He's right. You don't even look fit to fight."

"Do you? What matters right now is finding Jason," she glanced at Max and Grayson and moved away from Breaker's corpse, picking up her discarded jacket off the floor and dusting it before replacing it onto her person. She roughly combed her messy hair, wiped the blood and tears from her face and tore the frayed fabric off one of her stockings. "I don't care if I die saving him. It's thanks to him that we're still alive and I'll freeze Gotham over if that's what it takes. You two can stop right here and I won't be mad because I would stop here too, but the man that I love is either conspiring with the man I used to love or is being held against his will with nothing but his lingering thoughts to break his sanity all over again. The last thing that I want is to lose him again. I can't lose him again. I won't lose him again."

Max sighed and collected his other firearm, "Then what are we waiting for, Al? Let's go and kick some more Syndicate ass, find Mr. Hood and actually properly deal with Sinclair. We might not be nearly enough to tackle his army but we're all Jason has and that is enough."

Nightwing smirked, "Guess it is gonna be a long night."