Dang, it's been months since I last updated this. It's been...really hard since the last update and the pandemic made me feel a lot of things. That, and new ideas kept changing the end of this story. How it ends is still exactly the same but the journey to get there has been constantly archived. I can definitely say we're almost there and I'm actually kinda upset to end this story. Thank you to everyone that has been following Cold-Blooded, maybe I'll write up shorter stories around this universe, maybe not.
Jason Todd was a very persistent man.
Sinclair knew that. The Red Hood was a name revered in the Gotham underground. For months since donning the persona, he's been making quite the changes and he started with Sionis. Poor man. Kicked out the window of his own building. It was that action alone that made criminals and low-lives quake in fear just hearing it; the Red Hood. Brazen and tactical but relentless and irrational.
Jason sustained under the waves and waves of mercenaries, swatting through their inhuman capabilities like it was just another day at work but Sinclair finally got through to him, to his central nervous system. While Syndicate's Metahumans were lucky in that their bodies were attuned to faster cell regeneration, Jason was mortal and merely flesh and bones despite his dip in the Lazarus Pit and his ritualistic Cleansing with the All Caste. He was bruised and bleeding, wrists chained above him, his armour torn from his body and his visor recklessly tossed across the room so Sinclair could see for himself the man that so desperately clung to his little rose. His head hung low, every chance at trying to fight back immediately redirected straight to his spine and brought a pain Jason never thought he'd be able to feel but he did, and it hurt like hell.
"This must feel familiar to you. The only thing I'm missing is a crowbar," Sinclair smiled, unbuttoning his blazer before tucking his hands in the pockets of his slacks and standing in front of Jason. "I do have to hand it to you...what should I call you? The Arkham Knight? The Red Hood? Robin, perhaps? Trading places with Hayashi was bold of you, but your irrationality got you here. Before me. I've had my eye on you since before your first contact with Alias, the Arkham Knight in digital armour."
Jason had to spit out the blood pooling in his mouth before he spoke, "Wow, someone's done their homework. You must be so proud of yourself."
"I know my fair share."
"Apparently."
Sinclair tilted his head. "Your mother was a drug addict and your father was an alcoholic. You lived in an unstable home, afraid of your mother overdosing or your father beating your mother so you had to fend for yourself. Even if it meant having to steal or having to fight your way, you managed. That's where your recklessness came from and that's also how you died. Bruce could never understand your intentions: you never wanted to hurt others, you wanted to stop people from hurting others. Even if it meant you being the one to hurt those that hurt others." Jason clenched his fists and yanked at his restraints. Sinclair paid no mind to his feeble attempts.
"You don't fucking know me," was his cold reply.
"I know why you rely on Alias so much." Jason glared at Sinclair as he spun on his heels and sauntered towards the line of Syndicate troopers on standby, grabbing one of their pistols before pointing it at Jason and firing twice. Before the bullets hit Jason braced himself for the common sensation that followed when you were shot but it never came, and he peered down at the fresh wounds in mild confusion. "And I also know of your secret. You're a man with absolutely nothing to lose."
"Yeah? I'm also ten feet from kicking your ass." Sinclair flicked his free hand and the heat and the pulsing and the waves of searing agony made him grit his teeth, his fists trembling as he tried to swallow his screams. It was nothing that he'd ever felt, his whole body was on fire, full of blades, dipped in freezing waters, crushed over and over again. There was never a pause to it, just a constant stream. Even when his restraints fizzed away and he sank to the tiled floor, he couldn't stop the tears from falling. Everything was melting away, all he could focus on was the pain and it was slowly pulling him into the dark.
"You're an intriguing man, Mr. Todd," Sinclair sighed as he placed the pistol on the table and knelt beside Jason, his eyes darkening and glazing over. "You would go through all this trouble of sacrificing yourself for just one girl. I'm glad I didn't have to personally seek you out. Now I know exactly how to break Alias."
He frowned as his silver eyes traced the burn scar on Jason's cheek and suddenly brightened up, gently tapping the scar and watching in delight as Jason let out his gut-wrenching screams. He was struggling for his life, cursing and crying and howling on the floor and unable to do anything about it. Sinclair stood to strip himself of his blazer before tossing it over the table and removing his cufflinks, all with an anticipating look on his face. "I have to break into you. This will be fun." Sinclair's face gently warped into calm when shuffling behind him caught his attention and he left a screaming Jason on the floor to confront Rhys and a few of her men, Rhys who was clutching her frozen hand.
"It's done," she spoke, trying to keep her voice level as the pain crept up her arm, now blue and sprouting jagged shards of ice. "Christian's dead and Alias threatened to kill me."
"Doesn't sound like it's been your day, has it?" He smiled gently, reaching up to wipe the sweat that trickled from her hairline. Her injury must've slowed her down, normally she's punctual.
"Her power is destroying my arm."
"A cost to wield transcendent might―"
"A cost for fuck all. You wanted this, I could've killed her and this would all be over."
"I could, but what is my rose to bloom when she has barely grown?"
Rhys stepped forward, "You're trying to break a man that came back from the dead broken. Do you think that what you're doing will bring Alias here?"
"What I'm doing will leave her no choice but to come here. Besides, Jason needs her and all I need to do is tell her the truth. Show her the truth―"
"Arcadius is getting stronger than we anticipated, even with the bindings she managed to summon him."
"Oh? Ooh~, is that so? That evens the odds by a little―" Rhys had stepped so close she lowered her voice to an angered hush, but Sinclair kept where he stood. Confident and unmoving.
"She told me what you said. I knew you were using her to get to me. All this time and you just wanted to prove a point. You know Arcadius is mine. Arcadius was always mine! The only reason why I can't wield him properly is because of you!"
Sinclair reeled back and gathered his composure just as fast, laughing at Rhy's sudden outburst before narrowing his eyes. Rhys screamed as her arm throbbed and ached, the pain pulling her to the floor. "And yet you still don't know your place. You're right, Arcadius is yours but the problem with your mentality is the reason Jason lies there unconscious: irrationality. He's willing to risk his life the same way you were willing to drag Syndicate into the fires. That's the only reason why you're having to tie up loose ends, kill all the staff involved. Because you couldn't keep yourself to yourself, could you? Always wanting to charge in without contingencies. I provide you with powers you're unable to wield, but what I should've been doing is unleashing your dormant power. You want to become a god so badly, you'll have the power to stop one. And to think Alias never noticed."
"No! Please! Taeyeon, don't…" Rhys pleaded. "D-don't do this! I won't forgive you! I'll never forgive you!" The troopers that arrived with her didn't say a word when they moved away from her and joined the guards on standby; having bore witness to Rhy's full capabilities, it all seemed like part of the plan.
Sinclair stared down at her, "Who said I'm asking for your forgiveness, Rhys?"
"Eyes up." Max darted up the stairs before grappling up to a vantage point, with Alias taking cover behind empty weapon crates below him a short moment after and Nightwing joining her at his separate cover. Upon his arrival, he brought out his sniper rifle to observe the field. "So much for a small team."
"Like I said: interference."
"Radio transmission I picked up does lead here. Strange they don't use Rex for calling in extractions."
"Rex can only do so much, even as the strong telepath he is. Maybe all the psychic interference from all the minds he's linked to is probably overwhelming. This is something you should know, you're a telepath as well."
"Not entirely." Max corrected her. "I'm more of a psychic jammer than anything. Can't actually read minds, although right now I'd love to read yours. What are you thinking?"
"It's Jason. Even now I can't feel him. It's actually starting to worry me."
"Hey." Nightwing leaned forward so that he was in Alias's peripherals and made a soft expression. "We're not doing this again, Blake. You should know that Jason is tougher than he looks, tougher than all of us. What the Joker put him through is nothing that Sinclair can match."
"And that's what I'm worried about," she sighed as she let the haze rise against her cheeks. Like before, it flushed up into her hair and brought a numbing headache as it did, but she had to mark all Syndicate troopers on the level above. "Sinclair is a calculating man. Christian's death served a higher purpose. If Sinclair wanted to kill me, it would've been on Halloween."
"You think Sinclair's planning something for Jason?" Max asked her, dropping his aim to glance down at her.
"No." The haze dissipated. "For me."
"How should we play this?" Nightwing asked. "I count nine: five unarmed and four armed."
Max chuckled quietly, "You sound disappointed. I can always get them to bring in reinforcements."
"This is easy game. Nothing we can't handle."
Alias crossed her arms. "Or I can just freeze them and get this over with."
"But where's the fun in that?" She grinned at Nightwing and he brought out his batclaw. "Sometimes a slow burn is worth the wait."
"On your word, Grayson."
"Then let's make this quick." Nightwing called out just as pointed the gadget upwards and Alias flicked her hand out, a violet vantage point anchored in mid-air, before summoning the fiery mist and twisting her hand slowly. The extraction team looked around in worried confusion as a sudden snowstorm brewed around them, obscuring their vision and whatever lay beyond the storm. Just as Nightwing swung up using the vantage point Alias materialised a glacier to blast her into an arc, using another one that shot out from the side of the wall adjacent to bounce off, and a third platform in the centre of the blizzard to steady her landing.
Immediately on recovery, the winds dissipated and fighting broke out, Nightwing and Alias juggling a couple guys at once before relying on each other to finish an opponent. Slamming one into the side of the military vehicle, breaking a limb, using the icy elements for a brutal finisher and electrified escrima sticks to immobilise. Until a few unsuspecting soldiers fell victim to Max's sniper: a complete replica of Red Hood's guns, ruthlessly accurate in his hands and a dull paperweight in others. His two-tone eyes were glued to the makeshift battleground, gently adjusting his aim where it needed to be, waiting for Alias's signal to join the fight. Breathing slow to maintain precision, finger a mere pressure away from firing and his mind entirely focused on the gun in his hands.
There. A helpless Syndicate trooper was kicked towards the ledge and Alias gestured her hand upwards to prepare an ice wall behind him, and Max fired. The bullet struck the soldier with unbelievable force, smashing him through the wall and leaving him haphazardly lying over the remains. Max shifted to the right ever so slightly and fired again, this time destroying the assault rifle that was aimed at Alias, and he saw the quick thumbs up through the scope before removing his digital sight. Two men left, nothing the Flying Grayson and the Ice Merc couldn't deal with.
In Alias's hand fabricated an icy whip that was cracked to the closest armed soldier, still shocked at his comrade slumped over the remains of the ice wall. She yanked him towards her and met him halfway with a single-leg dropkick, his body swinging up under him and she caught his assault rifle before he hit the ground. She kept moving, freezing the firearm before tossing it off the rooftop and saw an opportunity to team up with Nightwing once again when his opponent staggered towards her. Alias ran up and leapt in the air, spinning quickly to unleash a devastating cheat nine kick that floored the soldier immediately and heavily. "Here," she called out after she recovered, not forgetting about her own opponent who was struggling to lift himself off the floor and helped him up; a glassy platform violently threw him up in the air and he was helpless to avoid Nightwing's attack, a perfect flip kick.
"We do make a pretty good team," Nightwing beamed as Alias helped him to his feet, glancing at the unconscious moulds of fresh and shattered weaponry. "Wait, let me not say that out loud before Max gets all jealous."
"I heard that, birdie," Max landed, playfully unimpressed by his words as he jogged down the halted escalators. "We're in the clear, time we head on up."
"You don't think there's another team waiting on the roof?" Nightwing questioned him, waiting for Alias to fall a step behind to lead them to the elevator, with Max hitting the button to take them out of Arkham Knight's HQ.
"If that was the case, Al would've said so by now. From here, we should be fine. Hopefully."
"Hopefully."
"Do we even have a plan?" Max realised, throwing his hands up in annoyance. "What, we're just gonna storm the fort without the storm?"
"Syndicate moves too unpredictably," Nightwing told him. "Trying to make a linear plan won't work when they have a Meta that can alter your perception of reality. From here on out, we improvise...although a plan would be nice."
"Would be nice, it is nice. I swear, after we're finished here, I'm going on vacation."
"A vacation sounds great. But crime doesn't sleep."
"God, you sound like Batman," Max snorted.
"I do, don't I?" Nightwing chuckled, his light expression glowering when he peered back at Alias.
"You haven't spoken a word since, Blake. You holding up okay?"
"I'm...doing my best," she replied. "I should be asking you, no? I'm surprised you even followed us."
Nightwing looked back at her, "I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing you went alone. Facing Syndicate in your state is dangerous. You're a Meta but you're not invincible."
"My powers don't matter when Jason's life depends on it...I've seen his scars, the burn mark on his face, I've seen what it does to him. He was just a kid, Dick. An ambitious kid at the right place at the wrong time. To even imagine what he went through only to be killed in the end..." Nightwing could hear the conviction in her voice and held her shoulder.
"You know, when Barbs told me that Jason was alive, I honestly thought she was playing a terrible prank on me. It wasn't until he showed up at the diner that I realised the joke's on me. He's gone through the worst of it and for him to finally confide in someone after all these years...he is a pain in the ass, but he's our pain in the ass." Alias chuckled at that.
"He is a work in progress. Even now, he's haunted by his past and it's the one thing I wish I could heal. All of this power inside me and I can't even help ease his pain. Becoming Bruce's biggest failure crushed him so much that death was the only thing that could bring Jason absolution. Knowing that he was replaced by Drake."
Nightwing made a remorseful face, "Even if he never said it, Bruce was resentful...guilty. He wouldn't speak to anyone for weeks, kept himself occupied in the Batcave just searching for Jason. He was searching, always searching, until he saw the tape."
"Which is why I can't let Jason go. I want to cherish every single part of him, so much that he will never have to feel guilty about his own existence. I want him to know that being Jason Todd is absolutely fine."
He sank back as a serious answer popped into his mind, "Do you really love Jason?" And Alias snapped her head towards him with an equally serious expression.
"I do."
"Then it's settled. Get Jason, destroy Syndicate, better endings."
"Better endings..." Alias smiled up at him. "I owe you, Gray. I owe you everything."
"Now now, let's get Jason back first and then I'll think of an installment plan." They laughed together for a short while, Max unable to hide his own little empathetic smirk as he relished in Alias's brief happiness. It was strange, before Alias was direct in doing her job, now she was snuggling close to the Red Hood, who carried his own title in Gotham, and sharing playful banter with Nightwing. Two people she was paid to kill. What was more strange was how her client, 'til now, hadn't figured out their targets were still being targeted and made no move to reprimand her. Which made this situation much more enigmatic. He sighed, iching his chin with the barrel of his gun. While he wasn't a combatant ex-Syndicate mercenary, his psychic walls were perfectly paired with his ability to detect lies. And he knew Jason was lying about something. Whether it was about that stupid promise or something else entirely, he couldn't figure it out.
Finally at the top after their sluggish ascent, Max was the first one out with his freshly-reloaded pistols and Nightwing and Alias jogging after him. It was when they reached the edge of the rooftop that Max's head perked up just as a little blip appeared. Before he could say anything, the fiery haze flared up on instinct and Alias snapped her head towards the city horizon, narrowing her eyes as she picked up a new heat signature. A raging one. Nightwing noticed. "Blake, what's―"
"Wait." She held out her hand to silence the Flying Grayson, the heat signature moving fast and moving towards them. There was a distant rumble that disturbed the foundation of the building, the construction wobbling around them and Nightwing pulled out his escrima sticks. It was only when the signature was in their line of sight that Alias widened her eyes; she recognised her. Something's changed. Something ferocious. She knew Rhys wasn't strong enough to contain any power, so how was she speeding to them like a rocket with red lightning in her mouth? Alias gasped.
She could feel the Shard of Arcadius. But it was different.
"A plan would be great," Max's voice rose in faint hysterics. "Like right now!"
"We deal with Rhys, then we go looking for Jason."
"You're not going anywhere!" Rhys yelled and threw a ball at them, Alias flicking up her hands to block the attack with ice but the shockwave cracked the fresh barrier. Rhys landed heavily on one of the unfinished pillars and the trio spun around to face her: this was Rhys unconstrained. The disciplined air that followed her was replaced with a power that Alias could feel thumping inside her own chest. It was familiar but suffocating and electrifying. Even her blonde hair that was usually tousled behind her was fluttering wildly, her hazel eyes now pools of lightning crimson. "Oh, how I've waited years to rip you apart, Blake. Years! Taeyeon never gave me the chance to fight you...until now. As the catalyst to the Shard, not even Arcadius will be able to stop me."
"You want to put that to the test?" Alias taunted her, her hands summoning violet mist.
Rhys chuckled. "Gladly." Red energy flooded into her body and she directed it to her left arm, the power curling viciously and with the intent to destroy everything. One moment she brought her arm up and the next she leapt from the pillar and slammed it onto the floor, and on impact a shockwave that devastated the rooftop.
