Chapter 8
Deadshot.
Hey, guys. here's the newest chapter for you and i just wanted to let you know that once i'm done with this i will continue The Son and Daugthers of The Head of Demon. now enjoy this chapter.
"I think he's talking to you." Harley Quinn said in a obvious tone with an arrogant as she scrambled back to her feet, Jericho raised his hand letting the SWAT team into believe that he surrendered. However he had a small device that Lucius had installed just in case if he was in a situation like this. he pressed the button and it sent out a high pitched sound that made them clutching their heads in pain. Harley Quinn was no exception. Taking advantage of their disorientation, Jericho managed to take almost all of the SWAT Members except for Captain Drake. He disarmed him and elbowed him in face knocking him out cold.
"Sorry Drake. But I'm giving you the rest of the night off." Jericho declared and then he back handed Quinn who was trying to sneak up on him. And right on cue, Talia came down through the rooftop window and joined her brother as GCPD arrived on the scene with Anderton and Gordon leading the way.
In a Cargo plane heading to St's Petersburg, Russia. 4 years ago.
Jericho was sitting across an ex Navy Seal Paul Reynolds who was sharping his katana sword with some of the fellow assassins. Talia was reading a book while sitting next to him in deep concentration, Nyssa had her head back on the wall with her eyes closed holding. They were heading to St Petersburg for an assignment.
"God, I really love this sword more than anything right now. Wanna know why?" Paul asked, admiring it for a sec.
"Nope." Jericho replied, showing no interest of what's he about to say. But Paul ignored the comment and continued on anyway
"It's memorable. I mean sure it's hard to slip them through the security but when you have a couple of swords on your ex wife's wedding… they will never ever forget it."
"You know it's funny, Paul? I think you're confusing me with someone who gives a fuck." He said sarcastically, giving him a bored look. Paul scoffed, shaking his head.
"Of course, its not intimated as having a gun or reading a book or carrying an archery bow like 60 year old lady who still thinks that she can hit a bullseye."
Talia simply ignored it by continuing to read the book while Nyssa heard it and gave him an intimating glare, saying that if you don't stop talking, I'll kill you. Or atleast that's what Jericho understood. Paul reached something in his pocket and brought out a small nail file.
"Manicure?" he teased,
"Nyssa. At ease." Talia commanded, not looking up. Nyssa paused for a moment contemplating her choices and she decided to not kill him. Not yet at least.
"ETA in three minutes." The pilot announced as he turned the cargo plane turned left and three minutes later they arrived at the landing zone. They got out of Cargo Plane and headed out to the woods outside of the mansion where they spread out divding themselves in two groups. Jericho, Talia, Nyssa and Paul along with few others.
Jericho was checking the perimeter hiding in the trees with his sisters, it was heavily guarded, two security guards defending the gate and two more doing rounds.
"Hmm. Four guards visible from this side. Well organized." Jericho reported,
"Paramiltaries. Intermediate training." Talia informed, "Is Paul and the others in position?"
"Is everyone prepared?" Nyssa asked tapping into her earpiece.
"Oh yeah, it's hunting season." That was Paul's way of saying yes, Jericho sighed as he tapped into his own earpiece. Paul has intendances of getting reck which more often or not, gets him into trouble often.
"Control yourself, Paul." He warned, and then turned to Nyssa who had her bow prepared with an arrow. "Nyssa, take them out."
Nyssa shot an arrow from a very good distance and instantly killed one of the guards. The second guard tried to set off the alarm but Nyssa quickly shot a second arrow, eliminating him. She killed two more guards at the gate entrance allowing Paul's team to come out of the shadows and enter the mansion by jumping over the gate and entering through a window that led to the kitchen. The Al Ghuls joined them soon after and they easily took out the security. Jericho was leaning on the walls as the last guard came out out of the room hearing . He put the last guard under a dragon sleeper twisting his neck with a loud snap and tossed him away like a bad habit. Talia walked into one of the master bedrooms and dragged a middle aged man from it. Jericho followed pursuit as Talia took the hostage down stairs to the band of assassins in the living with Nyssa.
"You know who we are, Dimitri Kravchenko." Nyssa stated,
"Yes." Dimitri replied, he had a deep Russian accent,
"Then you know what we want. We want the launch codes to the russian Fusion bomb." what Nyssa was referring to was they had built a new weapon that would level an entire city. "I don't have the codes. I gave it to a scientist. American, his name is Dr. Conner. He paid me well."
"If you value your, life, you reveal this Dr. Conner hideout. now"
"I don't know." Jericho could tell that he was lying by the way his hands was sweating, and his pupils were dilating. Nyssa glanced at Jericho with a questioning look, he shook his head no and that was she needed. She pulled out a marked dagger from her right thigh and sliced the palm on his hand. He yelled in pain cluthing the injured palm as couple of seconds later a wave of dizziness hit him hard.
"What have you done to me?" he demanded, feeling dizzy.
"I poisoned you. I have the cure. If you tell us, I'll grant you." Nyssa laid it out to him, after a few moments he finally succumbed in defeat as he
"Arkansas. There's a lab. Somewhere in Ozark mountains. That's all I know. Please."
Nyssa took out a vile from her left thigh and handed him the cure. He chugged it down quickly. just then they heard some movement upstairs. Paul took out his gun and followed the sound. Jericho ran up the stairs to prevent him from doing anything careless. But by the time he ran up to the room, he heard some screaming and gunshots. Not needing an invitation, he burst through the door and was horrified of what his eyes laid on. A woman was laid out on the floor with two bullet holes on her stomach and her eyes were looking up to the rooftop lifeless. A little boy was snuggling into her arms as if he was sleeping but Jericho knew it better, he didn't heat any heartbeat or breathing.
"What did you do?" he asked through gritted teeth,
"Tying up loose ends." Reynolds shrugged unfazed by his actions "Can't afford any witness, now." And then he left walking past Jericho who still hadn't taken his eyes off the bodies. Just then Dimtir ran up the stairs hearing the gunshots and broke down in tears once he laid his eyes on his dead family. Jericho walked away from the scene not saying a word.
"Uncle? Hello? Earth to the Son of the Demon?" Jayden called while waving his hand to his uncle's face who was lost in thought back at the Batcave after Harley Quinn and the SWAT Team were sent to Blackgate Talia was having a medical check from Alfred Jericho snapped out of it and went back to work. Jayden wondered what is going through the mind of his uncle right now because he is very hard to read at the moment but he knows that something is troubling him. He'll have to wait with the questions for now sensing that Jericho doesn't want to talk about it yet.
"Well, Now Harley is safely behind bars, we may finally celebrate the holidays after all." Barbara commented as she rolled to the bat computer to her fiancé, "we got some leftovers."
"Not yet, darlin'. Bane is still out there. I need to locate the signal from the tracker I placed on him back at the Royal Hotel." Jericho tuned on the police radio to listen an upcoming call.
"Dispatch, this is Delta 4-7, The Ellsworth Building. Confirmed. Buliding was a construction site. No sign of casualties. What's the story back at the precinct?"
"Come on, honey. Even you must have something to eat before you go." She insisted,
"I'll have plenty of time doing that once the night is over." Jericho declined it, he still has some work to do tonight.
"Jericho." Barbara maintained the stern tone in her voice,
Jericho sighed rubbing his temples, "Not now, Barb."
He tuned into another frequency on the police radio where he listened into a very interesting conversation between the cops.
"Some kinda hopped up freak. Must've been 400 pounds of muscle. Took 6 cops to gun that bastard down."
"Yeah, I saw the body at the morgue."
"Sounds like this could be one of Bane's men. If I can hurry to the GCPD morgue, I can get the autopsy report and inspect the body." Jericho declared,
"Can't Bruce take care of it?" Barbara asked,
"Nope, he's busy sending Mad Hatter back into Neverland. God, I hate that place." Jayden replied, shuddering at the memory of his trip to Wonderland, he'll go through hell and high water to not go through it again. "want me to tag along?
Before he could answer, a distress signal was coming into the police feed.
"Dispatch, Air 1 is hit! Repeat- I'm going down! Mayday! Mayday!" then the call ended abruptly going static.
Jayden smiled apologetically at his uncle, "Sorry, Change of plans."
"I better go and check on your mother." Jericho went down the stairs to the medical bay where Alfred just finished the check up on Talia. Jayden "How is she, Alfred?"
"Well, aside from sustaining some bruises and broken ribs, she's fine as a fiddle. It's your turn now, master Jericho."
"What are you, my mother?" Jericho asked raising an eyebrow.
"No sir, I'm just a butler." He replied in a manner that left Jericho with no other choice. He groaned in resignation as he sat on the medical bench allowing Alfred to examine his body for any injuries, "Hmm… it appears that you have no internal injuries despite the beating you received from Bane earlier. I'll say it's a miracle that you're not in a coma right now."
"Yeah, well, I'm a tough nut to crack. Are you done?" Jericho asked a bit impatient, Alfred nodded yes, Jericho sighed in relief as he got off the bench and left the medical bay with Talia heading to the batplane but they were stopped by Barb who had followed them. so
"Hold it! Wait just a minute. " Barbara demanded as she rolled as fast as she could and pulled in front of them, "Are you still going back there?"
"Yeah, why?" Jericho asked confused,
"You barley passed your medical examine, you broke into the precinct breaking the law and almost got killed there at the Hotel . Granted that you may had been in trickier situations but you may be in over your head on this. I just… I just don't want to see your end." that wasn't the voice of the Oracle he knew, it was the voice of a concerned fiancé who doesn't want to lose her future husband in a on going war that has been raging on for decades. She's been in the war too and became a victim of it.
Jericho sighed understanding her reasons as he turned around, "Barbara, who do you see when you look at me? The boy whose mother fought for the justice and integrity until her death? The assassin who left families in grief and despair of their lost children?" he turned to face her, "While you're here every night, I'm out there, protecting the innocent from the predator." Barbara opened her mouth to argue but Jericho wasn't finished yet,
"You are the last person to judge me, considering that you've been in the front lines yourself . Then you know why they hired the assassins: it's because we are the reason why the criminals breathe easier when the sun rises. So no, Barbara I am not in over my head!" he headed towards the plane "And tonight it will be not my end but it will be theirs!" Talia sighed as she joined her brother in the Batplane and they took off heading to the GCPD morgue leaving Barb to contemplate his words.
The bat plane landed on a rooftop of an apartment building them across GCPD precinct. The snow storm had subdued but the snow still came in hard. They got off the plane and looked at the precinct who had doubled the sniper guards out on the roof since
"You do realize that you can't walk into the precinct after everything has happened tonight?" Barb asked on the earpiece.
"Nope, we're gonna go through the back door without attracting any attention." Jericho answered,
"Agreed." Barbara sighed, "I'm sorry about what I said before you left. I just hope you understand why i…"
"I know, trust me. I get it. one more thing," Jericho interrupted, "And I'm sorry for lashing..."
"Save it." Barbara cut him off, "You'll have plenty of time doing that when you get back safely."
Things were still not okay between them but at least it wasn't any bad blood between them. Jericho sighed as he left the rooftop with Talia and headed down the garage of the GCPD. There they snuck into the garage undetected and jumped down to the sewers in Burnley where they headed to the east sewers when they glided down to the expanse and they passed an derelict elevator shaft . they climbed up the ladder to enter the morgue. They looked around to see if anyone was there and luckily, there were none. Time to go to work. Talia looked at the body as if she tried to recognize it and then it hit her.
"It is not Bane but one of his men. I saw him before in the riot at the police holding cells earlier this evening." Talia explained as Jericho went to the computer that was set on the table and took out his cellphone to download the autopsy report. "What kind of compound did he inject himself with to change his psychology so rapidly?"
"I think I know why." Jericho told her as Talia walked over to him and looked at his cell phone, he had opened the file of the autopsy report and read the fine print, "He used a powerful compound that is very similar to Venom at the time of his death. It changes the user's bone and muscle structure greatly enhancing strength for short amount of time."
"However, given the benefits of this compound, it reduces the mental capacity in numerous ways, including critical damage to the brain's memory center which can cause permanent memory loss if the compound is used in longer periods." Talia continued, he closed the flie after they read the report and left the morgue down to the East Burnley sewers. Just then Jayden contacted them on the comms.
"We got a problem. I investigated the police chopper crash at the bowery. No survivors though. It turned out the tail rotor was severed by a high power round from 50 yards. So I found the bullet casing and did a ballistic analysis. You're not gonna believe who pulled this off."
"Who?"
"I'll give you clue: he claims that he never misses, he's a excellent marksman with a bad temper, got a real itchy trigger finger and is pissed off at you two for missing his target back at Arkham City."
Jericho sighed as he put two and two together of who shot the police chopper down, "You don't mean Deadshot?"
"No I was referring to Deadpool, the crazy bastard with the bad mouth. Of course, Deadshot." Jayden sarcastically said, "One other thing, I found a series of number on the shell casing. 451 726."
"They must be a radio frequency." Jericho thought to himself, he bought a frequency app on his cellphone to tune into the frequency and then found a decoded message from no other than Deadshot.
"Hello, Jericho. I see you decrypted my message." Deadshot said, "Well done, because you and I got a score to settle. Come meet me at the bank right now so I can put a bullet on your head and collect the prize. And in case if you're thinking of backing out I got a hostage and a very itchy trigger finger. OH and send a kiss to your exotic sister from me." Talia scoffed in disgust,shaking her head. Dies Floyd Lawton not have manners? The sheer arrogance of that man. It appears that the Al Ghul's gonna take a detour before heading to Bane's hideout where the tracker is at the moment.
After getting out of the Burnley sewers and leaving GCPD precinct, Jericho and Talia called for the Batwing and flew to the roof of Gotham Mercant's Bank. They used the same point of entrance as they did earlier the evening and they saw Deadshot armed from above with a laser mounted guns on both of his wrists and he was not alone.
"Six men, all armed. One hostage. We' cover more ground if we split up." Jericho told her, Talia nodded in agreement as they departed by Jericho grappling into one of the gargoyles while she jumped down to the lower floor taking care of the low leveled thugs. Jericho studied the mercenary's movement while Talia appeared out of the crate and took out one of thugs with a DDT and shot another with an tranquilizer dart from her gun.
Deadshot stopped in his track once his hearings picked up something. "They're here. Hey idiots, be alert. The Jerichos are here." But what his hearing didn't pick up was something landed on his back and fired a line to drag a fire extinguisher to him, causing itto erupt in smoke. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jericho jumped off the gargoyle and snuck behind him and rammed his head first to the floor. He took off by jumping off a ledge and drop attacked a thug knocking him out cold.
"Argh! Idiots!" he exclaimed as he got back up, really pissed off at his slipup "really need to invest in better security than these dumbnuts!" he readjusted his gun lasers and then became fully alerted this time he will not make that mistake again. "You know, it's a shame that we didn't hook up, we could've been such a hot couple." he was talking to Talia who had a disgusted look on her face.
"My apologies, Mr. Lawton, but I have no interest in you. My heart belongs to someone else, The Batman." Talia called out while taking out another thug,
"Oh well, the hotter ones are always taken." Deadshot shrugged it off as he jumped down to the lower floors and grabbed the hostage for leverage, "Such as this babe."
"Please, let me go!" she whimpered, terrified.
"If I see any of you two in my sights, this girl is going bye bye." He warned, that made taking down Deadshot a little difficult. The Al Ghul's had to reconsider their options without risking life of the young woman.
"Straight forward attack is too risky." Jericho thought hiding in a corner, "We need to create a diversion giving us the element of surprise." He spotted Talia taking care of the last one and gave her qlook. she nodded as if she understood his planning. Talia whistled to get Deadshot's attention once she got to the lower floor. He turned around to see Talia and was about to shoot her when he landed face first releasing the hostage and was pulled up to a gargoyle by a claw. Jericho came out of the corner and walked towards him with a victorious grin on his face.
"You know, Floyd, for someone who is the world's deadliest assassin, you're really getting sloppy these days." Jericho said, Deadshot tried to pull shoot him but both of his wrist mounted guns were somehow disabled.
"When I get out of this…." he snarled,
"Yeah, yeah. You'll find us and kill us over and over again." he dismissed the threat with an eye roll as Talia got the hostage to safety.
"Get original for once, nobody likes a has been."
Jericho flipped Deadshot off as he left the bank while Deadshot was cursing with every word for like 5 minutes, something that his mother would not approve but he was livid that he couldn't collect the prize money. And just as if wasnt bad enough, 30 minutes later Commissioner Gordon, Detective Bullock and Lt. Anderton arrived and saw him still hanging from the gargoyle.
"So you're the world deadliest assassin huh? You don't look so deadly from where i'm standing." Bullock mocked,
"Get him out of there." Gordon ordered as the officers helped him down.
The Al Ghul's followed the tracker that Jericho planted on Bane to Park Row where they found Bane's hideout in the sewers, they had fought off some of Bane's men down and just broke into the hideout by placing some explosives on the front door and blew it away. They entered not knowing what to expect. They inspected the hideout for a few minutes before Talia bumping into a gurney that had a sign that read Project TN-1.
"Project TN-1. It appears that Bane is experimenting with a modified version of Venom. That would explain the psychological changes we saw at the body in GCPD Morgue." Talia thought, she then walked into an office and examined the x-ray pictures of a human brain along with some notes regarding about TN-1's efficiency and it's side effects. Criminal or not, this is impressive work.
"Exceptional work. But he still hasn't discovered a way to reverse the damage to the brain's memory center." Talia reflected,scanning some of the work with her device and uploaded to the Batcomputer
"Talia! I found the tracking device. But there's also something you need to see." Jericho called out and by the sound of the worried tone in his voice; it could be trouble. She went to the end of the room and saw Jericho who looked furious and irate while looking at a billboard where were pictures of himself at Arkham City a few months back and from Interpol where he was a suspect on some cases though not caught. There were also pictures of Talia back at Arkham where she stood next to her beloved carrying the Joker's corpse out of Arkham City with her brother and of course some pictures from Surveillance cameras all over the city. things have turned for the worst, Bane knows their real identities.
"Does this mean…" Talia trailed off not finishing the question.
"Yeah." Jericho confirmed grimly, now it complicates the situation even more. "And that's not all." He walked to a set of tv and computer and started it. Bruce's press conference outside of the gate of now closed Arkham City six months ago and pictures of Batman from his early days in crime. Pictures of Jayden and Ally were there as well as Breeze and Shadow.
He roared as he destroyed one of the TV's in pure rage, if Bane really knows who they are, then they have a serious problem. He should've expected this. After destroying the set with some explosives they left the hideout and walked back to the Park Row. Jericho tapped into his earpiece to inform Barbara about the situation.
"Oracle, we got ourselves a code Red. Bane knows who we really are." Jericho reported,
"What? How!" Barbara gasped shocked,
"He's been keeping an eye on us since I destroyed the Titan Containers. You and Alfred better lock yourself safe at the Batcave. It's the safest place."
"OK. Uh, What are you gonna do now?"
"We'll figure something. Jericho out." Jericho said,