"I'm going to be out for the next week," Bruce said as Cassandra descended into the cave a few nights later. "League business. Clark's being light on the details, but I think it deals with Mongul. May involve some space travel."

"You certainly have learned to take the oddities of this life in stride, Master Wayne," Alfred said, rounding the corner of the cave.

"Why don't you bring us?" Cassandra said as she approached him at his computer.

"There are places out there worse than Gotham," Bruce said. "This city keeps us busy enough. Tim's in charge of operations, Alfred has override if it's necessary. I want you keeping tabs on Damian."

"I don't need anyone looking after me," Damian said from behind the door of one of the changing rooms. "I've gone on plenty of assignments alone."

"You're not with your mother anymore," Bruce said. "My cave, my costume, my rules." He turned to Cassandra and lowered his voice. "He respects you, at least more than the rest of the team. He and Tim are always at each other's throat and he couldn't care less about Stephanie. I want to get him out of his more violent state of mind, but for the moment we have to work with what we're given."

"I will look after him," Cassandra said.

"Thank you. You've got your assignments, I'll be in touch. Go get changed."

Over the last two weeks Two-Face's gang had reported a dozen disappearances among their ranks, Bruce and Tim slowly piecing together their probable location. "The Olympus has been out of commission since Maxie Zeus's, but he slipped out about a month ago. It's unlike him to act so quickly, but someone's working out of there. Tim and Stephanie are tracking Dent themselves. You two are to investigate what is being done with his men."

The journey toward Amusement Mile was largely uneventful, parking easy, given the final destination itself seemed out of use. The Gotham City Olympus stood atop thirty lower floors of concrete and steel. The image of almighty Zeus wielding a lightning bolt was visible from ground level, but as the neon lights had sustained damage, only barely.

"The club part looks to be blacked out, but it is a big enough building," Robin said as the came to the doors, only to find them locked. To the right was installed a scanner for key cards. "And father hasn't given me a sequencer yet, ugh."

"There are windows," Angel said. "Here and around the sides."

"Yeah, if we want to set off the alarms I guess." Robin stepped back, squinting at the building as he slowly walked its width. "I want to give it a few minutes, see if anyone else turns up. You take that alley, I'll take this one."

The two stationed themselves on the opposite sides of the building, waiting for some sign of life to approach the Gotham Olympus. Even for a city usually busy as Gotham, cars seemed to avoid driving down that road, the area surrounding the building remaining silent.

After twenty minutes that felt like much longer, there came a quiet creak, followed by conversation.

"What'd I tell you about drinking the boss's wine? You gotta be sick in the head before you can even take the way it burns," a first voice said.

"Friggen… friggen Greeks—" with each word out the mouth of the second man came heavy heaves. "Can't barf in the basement—affront to hospitality… really shoulda taken that job working for Firefly—"

He couldn't get any further than that. The second, intoxicated man ran into one of the alleys adjacent to the building, tore the lid off a trash can and vomited. The man, probably only in his early twenties with chestnut hair, struggled to stabilize his breathing as his much taller and heavier companion approached him.

"Feeling any better?" the bigger one asked, patting him on the back.

"Ugh, I just want to go home, Bill."

"I can help you with that."

The taller man named Bill flinched as Angel stepped into clear view further down the alley before going for the gun latched to his belt. "Damn it all! One of the bats is here!"

"I do not want to fight."

"Like hell you don't! Irwin, get the hell up and give me ahead, I've heard about this one dodging bullets."

The intoxicated one, in spite of the shouts of his friend, fumbled around in his pockets, searching for something. The first bullet sent a horrible bang through the alley, but Angel had already slipped back into the darkness. Irwin shouted, but for a minute or so it was drowned out by the ringing in both of their ears. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"She was gonna beat the crap out of us."

"Yeah, which is exactly why I was gonna give her my card."

"Zeus would murder you if he knew you were negotiating with the enemy."

"Well his stupid wine is murdering me already. Whatever man, we can just lay down up here, pretend she knocked us out. It's better than the real thing."

"Are you out of your damn—"

Bill didn't get the chance to finish the thought. A foot smashed into the back of one of his legs, knocking him off balance as a blur of red took a hop on his back, grabbed him by the back of the head and sent him careening into the pavement. All that followed was a groan into unconsciousness as Robin turned to the man remaining in the alley.

The drunken Irwin didn't think much of it as he resumed fishing around in his pockets. "Give me a sec, you can just have the key, I don't mind."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Are you not afraid?"

"I got cousins in the mob who got beat up by Batman on a regular basis. I'm just here for a paycheck, and even that's not looking so great." Finally he located and drew his pass. "Here. Anybody asks, you knocked me out."

"I already called an ambulance," Angel said as she stepped back into the light. "If you're gone, his men will think they took you."

"Perfect. Pleasure doing business with you kids. Try not to die in there and don't touch any of Zeus's booze. It's nasty stuff."

Robin looked back at him, wrinkles of confusion coming across his face. "That was way too easy."

"Sometimes you don't need violence," Angel said, scanning the card and opening the door for him, the two proceeding into the almost pitch-black of the building's ground floor.

Robin slid a hand to the piece in his ear. "Don't say anything, I'm going to try tracking where we should go." After a few seconds he turned and pointed to the right. "There's noise coming from a few floors down, looks to be all that's going on in this place."

It was almost surprising the elevator came for them, given the seemingly abandoned natured of the rest of the building. Once within the car, Robin again raised the card to a scanner on the wall, granting them access to basement floor three. At first the sound of the rumbling chamber descending deeper and deeper into the earth was all that was audible. But given a minute, the faint sounds of feet and arms beating against the ground and shouts could be heard. When the elevator finally reached the floor, shouts of, "Kill him!" and "Rip him in half!" reached the two as the doors slowly creaked open.

The third basement had a decrepit, industrial feel to it, dripping pipes running through the ceiling and scuffed, black tile on the floor. In the center stood two dozen men around what looked to be some kind of pit, a light within all that was illuminating the room. For the moment, however, most significant were a pair of guards wielding heavy looking guns stood on either side of the door, dressed in vests, black and bulletproof, paying the two no mind.

There was no time to lose, Angel and Robin each dropped and tripped one of the guards with a sweeping kick. Each yelled, Damian's even fired a few rounds into the air, but both were thrown into unconsciousness with a few strikes to their faces.

As the two stood up, both realized the victory was short lived. The gunfire had drawn the attention of the men standing over the pit in the center. Their attention came accompanied by the clicks and shifting of guns, every eye in the room now concentrating on them.

"Hold!" It was practically to be expected: standing at the center of the entourage was a single, tall, muscular figure dressed in what could have possibly been a bedsheet. His long, black hair and beard shown only barely in the dark of the room, but his commanding voice was clear, Maxie Zeus was had indeed made his return. "I see the Batman couldn't be bothered to grace me with his presence himself." Though the rest of his crowd had been silenced, there still came shouts of pain and flesh baring against flesh from the pit beneath him. "Be quiet, you dogs!" And like that, the pounding ceased. "Approach now, both of you. And don't make a move you'll regret." Angel had already reached for her utility belt to retrieve a smoke bomb, but Zeus stopped her with a shout of, "Hands where I can see them."

The two journeyed slowly to the opposite side of the pit Maxie Zeus and his goons stood around, his security lowering their weapons for the moment. In the center were a dozen men, battered and bloody in both their faces and knuckles, five feet down the hole, a ladder on Angel and Robin's side. To Zeus's immediate right stood a man somehow different from the rest: he was short, had a head of black hair and a goatee, was dressed in a suit, tie and a pair of orange sunglasses. He didn't appear to be armed. Angel squinted at him, struggling to identify where she may have seen him before.

"I had ordered the slaves of the deceitful, Trojan god Janus to do battle with one another, the most impressive of the combatants sworn a spot among my ranks." He turned then to the men in the pit. "But I now have a far finer offer. Whoever of you can kill one of the Batman's messengers will be given that distinguished honor instead." As he spoke, Angel noted one of the men on his right side sigh and roll his eyes, as if he had been through this routine a million times. As Zeus continued to sing his own praises, his employee in question slowly, quietly, raised his gun toward them. Mimicking his tiny movements, she leaned closer to Robin, judging the moment to perfection.

"Who should ever bring me one of their bloodied masks will be rewarded with—"

Angel grabbed hold of Robin and threw the two of them into the combat pit, drawing and tossing a smoke bomb thereafter. More gunshots filled the room in confusion and Zeus and Two-Face's men struggled to figure out what had just happened. It took Robin only a few moments to realize what she had done and the two turned their attention to the opposition in the pit. Robin's fists and Angel's dull katana made short work of the shirtless men who had, up until minutes ago, had all been locked in combat with one another.

Still, the fight was not yet over. The smoke was already dissipating and there were still the heavily armed guards remaining. Robin tapped Angel's shoulder, as the bullets had left their ears ringing, and when she turned to him she saw he was pointing toward the room's ceiling, largely at a few of the oversized pipes running all throughout it. With a nod the duo drew their grappling hooks and fired, disappearing from the visibility of the armed crowd.

Every gun in the room was pointed at the pit as Robin and Angel crouched in the shadows atop the pipe, hearing demands of "Where the hell did they go?" as their hearing slowly returned.

"Find them!" Zeus began to search frantically up and down the room. "They can't have gotten far."

Zeus's guards made shouts and investigations of their own. But the bearded man in the suit at his side maintained his calm, neutral stance, as he finally drew attention to himself by tapping on Zeus's shoulder. "With respect, sir, you're not giving them a reason to come out," he said. "You have every weapon in the room on them, of course they're going to hide." As he spoke, be undid and discarded his tie, followed by his jacket. "If you want to kill the two of them, you have to allow them to believe the playing field is even." Tossing aside his button up shirt, Angel could faintly make out a tattoo on his back, its shape like a coiling dragon. He took a step forward and jumped into the pit, grabbing one of the Two-Face henchmen and placing a firm hold on his head. "I'm warning you both! You have five seconds to show yourselves before I snap this one's neck."

Robin would have been content to just wait it out, but this obviously took Angel quickly. "Don't do it," he said. "You're just playing into his hands."

"I don't have a choice."

Angel dropped from the top of the pipe, positioning herself directly in line with the man's head in the hopes of knocking him unconscious. In the last seconds before she hit the ground, he stepped aside, tossing the unconscious man aside as he did.

"Wasn't so difficult, now was it?"

The clicks of raising guns filled the room again, Angel already reaching for another smoke bomb when Zeus objected. "I paid far too much for Drakon's services! If any of you endanger my contract I will smite you where you stand."

Angel glared as him as a reluctant Robin followed her descent. "Constantine Drakon?"

"The one and only. And so long as the almighty is standing up there, I'm also a blood descendant of Ares." Drakon cracked his knuckles and clenched his fists. "I am Greek, so close enough I suppose."

"You're going to regret this," Robin said, "Whoever you are."

"He is one of Green Arrow's," Angel said. "And one of his best."

"Well, time to find out how you kids compare to how they make 'em back in Star City. Let's see what you've got!"

[[I swear I won't keep you guys waiting so long next time.]]