CHAPTER 42:
"Mission Accomplished"

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Damian reiterated his father's curse.

Handles had absorbed Arkells into his body, digitizing his essence with some sort of unknown technological process. Damian didn't understand it, but he knew Drake would. Drake was a pain sometimes, but he was exceptionally smart and techno-savvy.

He felt confused as to why he felt so angry. Arkells hadn't been with the Batfamily for long, a future version of Drake, but in the short time he had, he had become one of them. He figured that was why. From the future or not, Arkells was a member of his family.
His anger swelled and it knew all he wanted was revenge.

Then it hit him. And in response, he quickly looked around, found his father, ran to him, and rummaged behind his cape. Batman demanded to know what he was doing, but Damian said there was no time.

He plucked the EMP bomb from his father's Utility Belt and yanked the pin.

Nightwing screamed: "No, Damian! Don't!…Stop!"

But Damian refused to adhere and threw it at Handles, giving it a toss much like a pitcher to a catcher at the plate. The bomb soared through the air at a remarkable 90kph—Damian's strength was strong—and because Handles had artificial limbs, when it hit its target, its magnetic properties latched on and detonated. Jake Handles was too slow to stop it.

Jake Handles suffered the full effect of the EMP detonation. It didn't act like an explosive device. Instead, it produced an invisible electronic-magnetic pulse that shorted out all short wave associative communication. It was designed, by Drake, to only effect that within a set immediate range, programmed to generate a thorough signal characteristic to what it was attached, and to destroy it from the interior, overloading and overriding its matrix until it shutdown and fried. So, nothing the Batfamily carried was affected.

Handles froze, after a moment of violent jerking, as if he had just been electrocuted. Then he collapsed and fell backwards, landing with a heavy thud in the sand on his back.

For a split moment, as Damian saw Handles, it felt like Handles' death was a bit over-dramatic—staged. But then he gave a satisfied toothy smile. "Take that, you bastard! That's for killing Arkells!" He clenched both fists in triumphant. "Yes! Diplomacy be damned! Sometimes, it's best to take out a threat before things escalate. We all know talking wasn't going to get us anywhere."

"I didn't know you brought one of those," Jason said, impressed. "It's scary how much you've learned from me. Forget talking, just eliminate the threat." He smiled, and then he gave Damian a high-five. "Excellent tactic, quick and efficient!"

Nightwing looked unhappy. So did Batman.

Damian saw their faces. "What? He's dead. Okay, what did I do wrong now?" He expressed frustration. —Tt—

"Do you know what you just did?" Batman sounded angry.

Damian looked at both Grayson and his father in turn. "I don't understand. We all know he wasn't going to come quietly. And he absorbed Arkells!"

"In using the EMP bomb, you may have efficiently killed Arkells," Batman said flatly. "I kept it in reserve as a last resort knowing the devastating effect it would have on his infused AI. He was absorbed by Jake Handles, but he could have been retrieved. Data can be retrieved and reconstituted on the molecular level under the right conditions, you know this. We've done it before. But now, you may have just wiped out everything with a bio-signature, and that includes Arkells."

Nightwing looked dejected. "He's right," he said.

Batman eyed Damian. "How many times have I told you to think before you act?" he scolded. "You keep letting your emotions rule you, and in your haste for revenge, and just cost Arkells his life!"

Damian felt angry after listening to his father's words, but suddenly they struck home and he slumped his shoulders. His father was right. He swore under his breath, not out of defiance but out of his self-condemnation. "I'm sorry, I screwed up," he said.

"You should really listen to your betters, young Wayne," came a creepy voice as if it came from the grave. Everyone looked at Handles lying in the sand, spread-eagle, at his fried corpse. Heat still sizzled from his body. But then he rose in god-like fashion, levitating off the ground, coming to stand upright. "They are right, you must always think before you act."

Damian's eyes widened shocked. But then he recalled Handles death-thrall. He knew it looked a little too cliche, as if he was acting. The man had been playing them all for suckers from the very beginning.

The heat waves dissipated and Handles seemed fully functional with no adverse effects.

"How?" Nightwing expressed shocked. "The EMP bomb was designed to short-circuit all your electronic impulses."

Handles was back to his Operatic appearance with a half-mask. Before, he came out for a fight masqueraded with a PK illusion to restore his previous human-esque appearance to battle Nightwing. Now, he seemed not to care, and had returned to his current embattled self. Or, and Damian realized, the EMP bomb did have an effect, but it was not the result he hoped.

"You should know me better, Dick," Handles said. "Have you ever known me not to have a back-up plan? That is what Spyral taught us. They trained us to think ahead—to always have a Plan B. As I stand here, my resurrection after bring blown up and crushed under that building in Germany, where you left me, should've been proof enough. Any technologist worth his processor chips, should always have an independent and isolated system. The EMP bomb worked, but my main primary systems were protected."

Nightwing gripped his escrima sticks tightly. "Jake! Enough of this! Let's finally settle things! Fight me!"

Jake Handles/Annex laughed. "While true, it may be fun to fight you, and I did have the intention, and I still want to know where Julie is, but I'm afraid things will have to be settled some other time," he said. He appeared to look inward, and smiled. "It would appear I failed to eliminate a potential threat when I had the chance. To adhere to advise you once gave me back when we were allies—eliminate a threat before it bites you in the ass. Wise words, Dick Grayson. And young Damian did have the right idea in attempting to take me out before I posed a danger." He grunted annoyed. "I seem to have lost communication with my super-computer?"

"And here is the reason why," came a familiar voice.

All looked towards the voice, as Harvey Two-Face was literally pushed out from a thicket of brush, stumbling slightly, as Arkells followed him with Harvey's man-stopper in hand, walking out completely whole, not dead. They stepped out into the open.

"What the—" Jason began to express.

"Arkells!" Damian shouted happily. He was the most enthusiastic and thrilled of them all, but also extremely befuddled. The rest of the party also looked confused. "I thought I killed you? How?"

"Yes! How?" Handles demanded, bewildered. "It can't be! I absorbed you! I felt your essence fuse with mine!" Handles fists tightened with anger. "Your energy is still in me!"

Arkells smirked. "I do enjoy the look of shock on an enemy's face when they realize they've been deceived. It gives me a perverse satisfaction. You see, I tricked you into absorbing your PK construct of Rose Chiclete, whom I remade into a carbon copy of myself—well, almost. You obviously saw me use my morphing ability on a previous occasion, so I waged you thought you could absorb it, and to adapt it to your own abilities. Thinking it was me, you used that unique ability to digitize my other self with the help of your super-computer. But I was in complete control of things, remotely, and allowed it to happen. If you truly tried it on me, it would never happen." He looked at everyone. "I apologize that I had to deceive the rest of you, but I had to make things look real."

He gave a thin smile to Batman, as if for the speech he had made earlier through the PK construct, and got a nod in return.

Arkells tapped his temple with a finger, turning back to Annex. "My AI quickly devised the plan as a surrogate measure just in case something went awry, re-writing the PK's matrix wirelessly—and yes, I can do that. I am from the future, after all. You may have created a brilliant hard light humanoid construct, but you failed to prevent it from outside influences, namely hackers—like me. I bet you never thought they could be hacked and then reprogrammed? But I digress. While you were distracted by my carbon copy, I snuck away, accessed your lair—quite easily—and just happened to run into Harvey Two-Face trying to escape in a one-man jet."

Annex shook his head. "How? That's not possible? I was watching you…" Then he gasped, as if he recalled an important fact. "That moment you left, when you excused yourself to urinate in the bushes. You disappeared."

"Bingo!" Arkells responded. "Where your PK construct was waiting for me to receive my instructions hidden away from the others. I then easily overcame its ridiculous weak firewall, reprogrammed it, altered its form, synthesized my morphing abilities with a false bio-signature, and then returned it to the others, none-the-wiser that it wasn't actually me—same mannerisms, personality, and likeness—remotely controlled by my and the AI's collective consciousness." He smiled. "At first, I was afraid of the AI, I didn't understand it, but now I'm glad I fused with it. I understand a great deal more than before I never did, including my own humanity."

Annex gritted his teeth.

Damian could see the anger swelling on the villain's face, he looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel.

"But here's the kicker," Arkells continued. "I had planned to access your lair and destroy the sub-harmonic device, but I learned someone had already taken the liberty." He cupped Harvey Two-Face's shoulder, who looked defeated. "He told me the administrator password that he changed on your super-computer that he happened to learn in spying on you, and that was when I learned he had erased all data regarding your device—the SHSD (Sub-Harmonic Shock Disruptor). Suffice it to say, it will never be used to cause havoc in the world again—and no more invisible sonic attacks on unsuspecting worldly citizenry. You must've had a change of heart, didn't you, Harvey? I have always believed everyone can be rehabilitated."

Harvey Two-Face grumbled. "Stop thanking me, please," he said, almost embarrassed. "I didn't do it for you."

"The reason's fortuitous," Arkells said. "But I also suspect it may have been a moral decision." He held up Harvey's coin to the non-scratched "good side". Arkells then gave Annex a sly smirk. "Regardless to say, and despite someone trying to damage the main control console" —Harvey Two-Face grunted— "soon, even your super-computer will be rendered inert. I set the self-destruction mechanism. We all have one hour to get off the island before it destroys itself."

"As a great man once said: 'I love it when a plan comes together'," Jason said. The others agreed.

"Fantastic!" Damian said, giving Arkells a thumps up. "You're a lot smarter than I gave you credit for. This you, I mean. Your younger self is still an idiot, for how he handled the issue with you previously. Good job, Arkells! Now, let's finish this up."

Jake Handles suddenly shouted with an outcry of bloodlust, of a man who had just gone completely insane. But he didn't attack. Instead, he began to do something completely unexpected, and Nightwing saw what he was doing.

"Jake, no! Don't do it!" Dick Grayson shouted.

Jake Handles smiled, and then walked back, and stepped off the edge of the open crevasse behind him that Jon Kent had originally emerged from, and disappeared, plummeting into its dark abyss.

Nightwing ran over and looked down, shouting with his hands around his mouth: "Jake! Jake!" But there was no sign of his old Spyral colleague. The crevasse was so deep and bottomless that nothing could be seen. Jake Handles was gone.

"What the hell did he do that for?" Jason said, and came over to stand next to Nightwing on the edge, he looked down. "The guy just committed suicide? Why?" He looked back at the others.

Even Harvey Two-Face expressed shock, standing next to Arkells. Batman was straight-faced.

"Maybe he thought he had nothing left? He just lost everything," Damian said, his hands cupped on his hips. He stood a little off the open crevasse. "Good ridden to bad rubbish!"

Grayson gave him a nasty look as if Damian had just disrespected the dead.

"Come on," Batman said. "Like Arkells said, we need to get off Treasure Island before it detonates."

With the shock of Jake Handles suicide put behind them, the party quickly boarded the Batplane with Harvey Two-Face now handcuffed. Damian wanted to leave him behind after he revealed he had murdered Handles' two pet lionesses in cold blood, but he was out-voted. Harvey Two-Face was rendered unconscious and laid in the back of the plane after he was subjected to specially designed short-term memory-erasure gas. He was administered an extra heavy doze, so the past couple of weeks was erased from his consciousness, and also the secret identities of the Batfamily for which Handles had told him.

They all settled into their seats as Bruce readied the plane, Jon Kent jumping into the co-pilot seat.

Damian sat with Dick, Barbara, Jason, and Arkells, in the back.

But the moment Dick sat down, he looked thoughtful, almost reflective.

Damian wondered if he felt a little sad that his old friend had just killed himself without any regard. It was a shock, but not totally unexpected. Without his super-computer, and Handles cornered, the villain had nothing left. Perhaps he thought it was best to go out on his own terms rather than fight a hopeless battle with the clock ticking on the island that was about to self destruct?

Arkells said as they made their way back the plane that even if Jake survived, he had made the new computer password so difficult that it would be near-to-impossible for Handles to figure it out in time to save himself or his computer.

"What's wrong, Grayson?" Damian asked, as he plopped himself down in a seat. "We won. Sorry, you lost a friend. But he needed to be taken out. He just did us the favour."

Dick Grayson gave him a stare.

"Way to be tactful, D," Jason said. "It was his friend."

Dick shook his head. "No, that's not it," he said. "I agree, Jake needed to be taken out, but…" He put a curled finger to his lips. "Something about the way he smiled before he dropped bothers me. I can't shake the feeling we haven't seen the last of him. I could be wrong. But, I know by experience, people have a way of coming back when you lest expect them."

Damian crossed his arms. "Really? C'mon Grayson, Handles is dead. No one can survive a drop like that."

Jason laughed short. "We both came back from the dead, remember? But, Handles doesn't have the Lazarus Pit."

"Maybe you're right," Dick said, then he looked at Barbara, and smiled. He took her hand and kissed it. "I'm just glad things worked out and that the future looks very bright."

Barbara smiled back, and then she cupped his face with her hands, leaned in and gave Dick the biggest kiss on the lips, holding his head firmly.

When she broken the kiss, which was long and passionate, releasing him, Dick looked like he had just been subjected to a love bomb. He breathed out with hot breath and Barbara licked her lips. She even inserted a finger in her mouth, licking it, after she wiped the side of her mouth of moisture and a some spittle Dick's mouth had released during the kiss.

She then asked, "So, who's better? Me or Rose Chiclete?"

"Don't answer, Dick," Jason said, "it's a trick question."

Barbara looked down and saw his answer. Dick crossed his legs and placed his hands over his mid section, to hide his excitement. Tights revealed everything.

As Dick revelled and recovered from the kiss, Arkells asked, "So, Jason, what about you?"

Jason mused. "Um, whose the better kisser between Barbara and Rose Chiclete? I wish I could've found out myself."

Arkells shook his head. "No, I mean, there's still the little matter about you. There was never a chance to change you back. And I completely forgot when I was in Annex's lair to look for the Miniaturization Ray."

Jason shrugged. "Comme ci comme ça—whatever will be, will be, as they say," he said casually. "I'm going to mark this as a new beginning. Maybe form my own little band of outlaws, fight crime on the streets—like I did before—but help kids instead. I'll let you guys handle the Rogues. Less stress on me." He smiled a toothy grin.

"That's admirable," Barbara said. "And maybe we won't have to clean up too many of your messes afterwards."

Jason made a sour face and then stuck out his tongue.

"And you're going back to school," Bruce stated, from the front seat, finishing the start-up checks. "If you're going to relive your childhood, then you're going to do it right and experience what you missed."

Everyone knew Jason had been murdered by the Joker when he was very young and then came back as the Red Hood. Jason said when he was resurrected, he spent most of his child hood on the streets, unbeknownst to everyone.

"What? Nooo!"

Everyone in the back laughed except for Jason.

"Maybe he can attend our school, Dami?" Jon said, looking back from the co-pilot seat. "We can all hang out together."

"You need to have a brain to attend our school, it's one of prerequisites," Damian jeered.

Jason gave Damian a look of scorn. "I hate you," he said. "I've changed my mind. I want my old life back. Sitting for hours at a time in the same class as you will be like getting a root canal. God? If you're listening: Please change me back to my handsome self!"

Just then, as if his plea was heard from a higher power, he suddenly found his hands begin to enlarge, then the rest of him followed, including the very clothes and armour he was wearing—until he had reverted back to his former adult self, the likes to when he first landed on the island. He felt his face and patted down his body.

"Quick, somebody give me a mirror," he said, with an insistent tone. Barbara just happened to have a compact in her Utility Belt and passed it to along. Jason looked at his face and smiled. He was back to his old, handsome self. Included, was the tuff of white hair he had dyed out. He flicked it with a finger. "This time, I'll leave the white. I don't care if people think I look older."

"But how the hell?" Damian expressed.

Arkells mused. "Interesting, it is possible…" he said, his voice trailing off. "I read a paper on this once. It was called: The Theory of Molecular Evolution and the Phylogenetic Convergence of DNA Cells Through Time Release Reversion, written by a very prominent doctor in the field of Bio-Genetics. It plays on a time-variance associative context with a hexogamine biosynthetic—"

Jason suddenly gave Arkells a slap to the back of the head.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" Arkells said irate. He felt the back of his head.

Jason grunted. "You're super smart, Arkells, like your younger self," he said, "but stop using terms none of us can understand. However it happened, I'm just glad I reverted back to my old, glorious self, with my clothes intact, too. Handles did shrink me with these clothes, so it only goes to reason they'd enlarge with the rest of me."

"I understood everything he said," Jon Kent said, smiling.

"Would you like a slap, too? Because I've got two hands?"

Jon's smile quickly faded and he turned around to face the front of the plane.

Jason suddenly gasped, as if just remembered something. "Wait! I have to check something out." He turned his back to everyone and then unzipped his pants. Damian wondered what he was doing. "Yes! Jagger and the Rolling Stones are back in business!"

Jason zipped up and then turned back.

"Seriously?" Dick said, with an incredulous look. "You named them?"

"No need for you to name yours, eh, Dickiebird? You're already one giant—"

"Jason!" Barbara scolded.

Suddenly, Bruce laughed. A great big belly laugh.

He then launched the Batplane into the air using its jet boosters underneath to lift the craft, rotated its axis, and then blasted off into the sky. Soon afterwards, a series of large explosions began to be heard in the background, and a television screen in the plane showcased the destruction of the island—the mountain at its centre erupting with the power of the volcanic explosion.

The Maritime Authorities would not doubt what to know what happened, but that would have to wait for later.

A ways into their trip back, it began to get dark. Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. They had been out of range until now.

Alfred's broken voice began to break through once they got closer to the mainland as the Batplane soared under normal military radar, but in its own stealth mode over the Atlantic Ocean, and on their way back to the Western Coast of the United States.

"Mother Hen to Batman, Mother Hen to Batman—please respond." The message repeated, but it was not automated.

Bruce responded to the call. "Mother Hen, this is Batman. Sorry, but we've been out of range until now. We're on our way home. Mission accomplished. How are things there?"

"I'm pleased that your mission was a success, sir," Alfred replied, but his voice sounded worrisome. There was a pause. "However, not everything is rosey on the home front. I have the unfortunate news of telling you that Red Robin, despite fully recovered from his previous injury, is missing."

Alfred explained to them in short over the radio what had happened since their departure to Treasure Island.

When the Batplane finally landed back on Wayne Property, about an hour later, secluded in its hanger bay in the Batcave under the dead of night, everything was laid out in further detail. The full story, time references, and undertakings.

And that other parties in their absence had been dispatched on a rescue mission.

To be continued...