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I am really sorry for being gone so long, it was not my intention. I didn't want to deliver subpar material so I thought it best to wait out the lull in my desire to write this stuff. I am also sorry for almost immediately deleting the chapter after posting it. I noticed a continuity error and have since fixed it. I wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has left a review, I probably would have stopped by now if it weren't for all the positive feedback. I also want to say thank you to my beta reader, GreeKnight. GreeKnight has a story in the works right now and I'll let you guys know when it's finished so you don't have to wait on me all the time. Well, lest I bore you all, I'll get on with it. I don't own any of these characters or settings, blah blah blah. Enjoy, we're nearing the end of this particular story now.

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The gang leader walked through the double doors pushed open before him and attempted to conceal his amazement at what surrounded him. After being instructed on the protocol he was supposed to follow, he had been chauffeured into the large chamber he now stood in. It was a cross between a gothic cathedral and Victorian era designs. Dozens of paintings of one man hung on every wall with stained glass windows of his exploits shining brightly despite the entire room being underground. A red carpet ran from the large double doors he had just stepped through up to a throne set several steps above everything else.

A cane tapping the ground twice reminded the gang leader why he was there and what he was to do. He now understood why the words he had been told to say were chosen and internally grimaced at the thought of having to bow to such an ego. He walked half the distance up to the throne with his head bowed, then dropped to one knee and parroted the words given him.

"I and with me all the Street Demonz, swear fealty to The Penguin."

"Good. You know what to do next," responded the nasally voice upon the throne.

Ricardo Steelfoot, the new leader of the biker gang due to a recent and tragic end to his predecessor, stood up and approached the throne. Wincing as he kissed Cobblepot's ring.

"Now leave, Richard. Your 'boys' may continue to refer to you by that ridiculous moniker, but I will call you by your real name, and you will answer. Understood?"

Richard bowed and left the extravagant room. Apparently, Cobblepot had used his time free of the Bat for more than just gunrunning and power-grabbing. He had also constructed a veritable palace underneath the Iceberg Lounge, and was using it to great effect. As soon as the doors had closed they opened again, this time letting in the Penguin's assistant.
"Sir, he's closing in. Fewer and fewer shipments are arriving intact and, as he is no longer concerned with affairs elsewhere, his full attention appears to be devoted to you."

"Yes...there is no doubt he knows where I am. So the fact he has not come for me yet means that he is either hoping to dismantle what I have built before doing so, or that our extra security measures have deterred him. I rather doubt the latter." Cobblepot stared off into the distance, lost in thought. When he realized his assistant was still standing there sheepishly he knew that there was more bad news. "Spit it out."

"Sir, according to the man you had keep an eye on Circe, she disappeared, most likely teleporting, after her performance the other night...When she resurfaced, she had bruises and looked terribly disoriented."

"You think he got to her and has discovered the connection between us?"

"I wouldn't dare guess, Sir, but it has all the signs of one of his successful interrogations."

"Fuck. He's going to be pissed."

The assistant decided it was best to leave the room before the fear on the Penguin's face was covered up by anger, but before he could get out, it happened.

"AND WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING! I HAVE NEW ORDERS! MOVE UP THE TIMETABLES!"

The assistant dared not turn around. "By how much, Sir?"

"I WANT IT DONE TONIGHT!"

Flint kept his cursing in his head as he left the room, How am I going to pull this off?

…

The Batman was mad, he was furious; and his ire emanated from him as he flew over his city. He descended swiftly, raining justice upon any criminals unlucky enough to be caught in his path. He had begun a loose siege of the Iceberg Lounge, each of the Batclan members positioned at strategic points around the club stopping any shipments they came across. They even unintentionally scared off some of the club's patrons, although they were admittedly a very small part of the Penguin's income.

Every truck they stopped contained evidence pointing to Cobblepot's allies. The list of his known associates was growing rapidly and it was quickly beginning to feel as if he had gathered every criminal in Gotham under his umbrella. Putting him in jail at this point would do nothing, somehow he needed to create a complete lack of faith in Cobblepot's leadership. One that would infect the entirety of Gotham's criminal element. No, jail was not the answer, public humiliation and a sudden shortage of funds was.

There were countless ways to humiliate Cobblepot, once he got his hands on him. That would be the easy part. The hard part would be finding where he kept his money and repossessing it. For that, his only certain tactic would be to follow middle management to see how they got paid. However, if pay day only came every other week that strategy could take a while. It looked like hacking was his only option, which was unfortunate due to how long it would likely take. Finding weaknesses in banks' cybersecurity is hell on Earth, but he was backed into a corner.

He placed his fingers just under his ears to radio his wards, "I need all of you to stay on this. I might need a few days to crack Penguin's accounts."

After he issued the orders he immediately headed back to the cave and opened up his supercomputer. He had already compromised several phones belonging to Penguin's goons, so it was easy enough to connect to them. He had premade cracking software for many of the different phone models and began running the necessary programs to get into their phones, simple enough so far. Next he told the computer to look through their internet connection history and pull out anything that looked even remotely financially related and all the sites that three or more of them had in common.

He weeded out any websites that he knew to be unrelated and when he was done there was a relatively short list left, only about twenty entries. A more detailed look at the websites narrowed it down to three likely culprits. Now the long, arduous task of hacking into their accounts. After a few hours he had some of the accounts hacked through various means. He decided to wait on the remaining accounts in the hopes of getting enough to go on from the first few.

All of the accounts were being paid at regular intervals from various companies. He found and looked at the employment records of the goons, and sure enough, whichever of the companies was paying a particular individual also officially employed them. This meant several shell companies all probably with their own offshore bank accounts. It would be difficult and time consuming to find all the individual shell companies and offshore accounts. Luckily, he would not have to, it looked like they were all being paid in cryptocurrency, specifically coin. A smirk crept across the Batman's face, the Penguin had made a big mistake. In attempting to avoid the use of US currency and its many problems for criminal enterprises, Cobblepot had made his flow of income traceable.

…

Damian, being the youngest of the clan, had been assigned to one of the less active sectors of the siege of the Iceberg Lounge. He resented this, but he was not about to argue with Bruce in his current state. Instead he scanned the now empty streets of Gotham North of the lounge. He saw the occasional late night walker or car, but for the most part nothing was happening. It was one of the oldest parts of the city and in places very run-down and usually crime-ridden, but not tonight. The calm before the storm. The other sectors of the siege were the Penguin's main logistical routes since they guarded more of the city despite having a similar radius coverage as Damian's sector.

He watched as a disheveled man rushed out of a building and drove home as fast as he could; only to be greeted by a furious wife barring his entrance. The man proceeded to slam his car door and drive back to the place he had been before. Slightly amusing to watch, but hardly a way to pass the time in Damian's opinion.

That is when he saw it, a massive array of vehicles speeding out of the Iceberg Lounge headed straight for his sector. He smirked.

…

The doors to the Iceberg War Room exploded open. Flint, the Penguin's assistant rushed in carrying a stack of papers. In Penguin's presence, Flint was a sniveling idiot, it stroked Oswald's ego; but remove the Penguin and Flint became a mastermind that spoke with the Penguin's authority. The Penguin's "generals" were more an assembly of gang leaders and thugs that the grace of Penguin had smiled upon, and they listened to Flint. He took his place at the head of the table.

"New orders." Flint placed a piece of paper down on the large table and spun it around so the rest could see.

The generals leaned over and squinted at the writing.

"How in the Hell are we supposed to follow this order? The plans we discussed were supposed to take days to execute. He wants it all done tonight?"

Flint passed out portfolios to each of the generals and then looked at him over his glasses. "Those are the changes you are to implement. One more word of complaint and I'll make sure you don't have to do anything at all." Silence. "Good. The basic plan is to mobilize as many units as we can without delay and punch through the North end of the little siege we're under. Once through it will be all about speed and diversion to buy time. Certain groups will split off in an attempt to distract pursuers while the remaining units will fracture into individual transports and take multiple different paths to each objective. Once phase one is complete, units will consolidate at designated strongholds and everything should follow pretty smoothly from there. A small amount of deviation from the plans I just gave you IS allowed, but only to correct for anything I may have overlooked in my hurry."

The generals, now flipping through the briefings they had just been handed nodded in consent.

"You have your orders. I want everything at the ready in 01:00 hours." It was the generals' turn to rush.

…

"Looks like we're gearing up." Degan nodded towards their commander barking orders at some of their fellow thugs.

Trucks were being started and loaded up with men, others were being filled with gas. Men were grabbing guns and putting on masks and then piling into trucks. All the drivers were huddled around a map puzzling out their orders.

Warren looked around the veritable hanger. "Yeahup, looks like it. I mean, look at us Degan; any more discipline and we'd be the army."

"You just had to get us involved in a gang, man. Why couldn't we 'ave just slung dope on our own? You had to get us involved in this shit." Degan waved his arm at nothing in particular.

"Shit man, I didn't know it was gonna be like dis. You have to admit it were good 'fore the mothafuckin Penguin took over."

"Yeah I know man, it's just frustratin'. I mean who does this bitch think he is? Oh, look at me, I'm a fuggin flightless bird. Like what the fuck man?"

"Hey shut the fuck up! 'Fore your white ass gets heard."

"You're bein' louder den me, bitch!"

Warren shushed him with gestures this time before continuing to speak, "Aight, let's go, we gotta do this."

They geared up and got on the transport they were ushered to. It was full of similar types to them, common street thugs unwittingly turned into soldiers. The doors to the van they were in slammed shut and before they knew it, they were off. Warren had been seated in a spot that allowed him a view outside of the van and was describing their heading to the others.

"I think we're 'eaded for the Northern tunnels."

The driver nodded affirmation. "We need to get across the river and hit the main power plant to take down the city grid. Some other folks are headed for Wayne Manor."

The passengers looked at each other. "We takin' Wayne 'imself hostage?"

The driver shrugged. "Hell if I know."

They heard a small explosion and then gravity forsook them. First they were swung left and right as the driver attempted to maintain control, then they were thrown into the air before violently landing in a heap against the top of the wall of the now flipped van. The driver was unconscious, hanging sideways in an awkward position having been strung up by his seatbelt. Several of the passengers were also unconscious or just laying there groaning. Degan shook Warren who promptly woke up, holding his head.

"What the hell?"

"I don't know man, we just flipped."

One of the other men had managed to force open the back doors of the van and was crawling out with much effort when he abruptly accelerated with a scream and disappeared. A thud was heard and then his scream ceased. The only remaining conscious passenger, other than Degan and Warren, took out his rifle and yelled as he ran out of the van and started firing in every direction. His cries abruptly stopped as well. Degan and Warren drew their weapons and got back to back, frantically looking around hoping for any sign of the location of their attacker.

It was not long before they heard footsteps on the port side of the van, now acting as the roof. They fired countless times, letting moonlight flood in dozens of thin rays. Too much happened in the next moment for them to process. To their side a sword made three rapid cuts designed to permit entrance for their assailant. Then, in an instant, they were both outside of the van, disarmed. Right before the world went black they saw that their object of fear was a small hooded boy sporting an 'R' on his chest and a sword strapped to his back.

…

A bird, wingless in all but name, flew North through the night sky. Dick radioed his father in frustration.

"Batman, I'm not entirely sure what's going on yet, but it's Robin's fault."

"Get to the point." Furious typing could be heard in the background as Bruce gave his response.

Barbara was directing the siege from the clock tower and responded first, "Robin notified us that there was a small disturbance in his sector and that he would handle it. Well, for about two hours before he notified us we had seen a near cessation of activity in the other sectors. And, next time we radioed him, we could hear gunshots and he had clearly recently been active judging by his breathing."

Before Bruce could give them obvious orders, Dick cut in, "We're headed there now, and will give you an assessment of the situation as soon as possible."

"Good. Batman out."

…

His fingers danced over the keys as he watched the malicious cryptocurrency he had inserted into the Penguin's revenue stream. It was working like a charm, it made Bruce aware of any time a transfer of marked crypto was made and sent him information on any accounts involved in the transfer. As he watched the list of accounts grow, he programmed a tool that would organize the data into a sort of financial flow chart. He was almost finished with the program when the power went out throughout the entire cave.

He stood up abruptly ready to go throw the breakers when the power came back on. The backup generator. The Manor is cut off from the power grid. That or the grid itself is down.

"Nightwing, Red Robin, Robin; come in."

"Yeah, we saw it too, the whole city is dark." Dick responded quickly. "Red Robin is already on his way to the main power plant. I'm almost to Robin. Apparently a whole host of transports went through the Northern underwater tunnels across the river. We think some of them may have followed the river to the plant and knocked out the power. He's making a move, Batman, a big one."

Bruce did not respond. He went back to coding, he had lost a few minutes since the last time he saved and needed to make up ground. When he finally finished, he ran it on the data he had so far, he had plenty. The monetary flow chart revealed a choke point in the Penguin's operation, almost all the money wound up in a single Swiss account at one time or another. Where that account was in the organizational hierarchy was irrelevant, gaining control of that account would cripple the logistical infrastructure of the Cobblepot empire.

The communicator in his ear rang until Diana picked up.

"You need not say a word, I'm on my way."

—-

P.S. If anyone has art skills and wouldn't mind making a cover for this story that would be amazing. I would even be willing to pay you some. If you're interested leave a review or DM me and we'll work out the specifics.