Cassandra arrived at the bunker the next night at Stephanie's given time. When she stepped out of the elevator Stephanie, in costume save for the cowl nearly took her to the ground with a running hug, took one of her wrists and led her to the right side of the room.
"Thanks for coming tonight," Stephanie said. "This is gonna be great."
Cassandra frowned as she looked around the bunker. The uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, everything had disappeared. The room was nothing but white paneling from one side to the other. "It's empty."
"Yeah, some of Bruce's awesome hideaway tactics," Stephanie said. "The whole floor can be lowered deeper underground and we can pull another one over it. Kind of weird to think about, but it's like all our stuff is the inside of an elevator." She stopped and tapped a foot. "This right here is the top of it, or something like that."
"Why is it empty?"
"Because this place is gonna get pretty messy tonight. Stephanie came to a keypad and punched in a few numbers. "We've been eavesdropping on those Reaper jerks. They've been zeroing in on our hideout, they all think they've gotta get their buddy's helmet back before we can decrypt it, they just don't realize we already did. All four of them are coming out tonight because they think that's what it might take to get the helmet back, but they have no idea we're already prepared for them."
A doorway was revealed when Stephanie pressed the enter key and she led Cassandra into a small hallway before turning to a room with a large central monitor and a keyboard console. Tim was seated there, two empty chairs to his right. Some kind of wire hung from down Tim's head, Cassandra assumed he must have an earbud in.
"We all ready to rock, Boy Wonder?" Stephanie took a seat next to him. Cassandra follow suit with the third chair.
"Ran the tests a couple dozen times. Everything's in working order," Tim said. "All we've got to do is wait. They haven't even shown up for their costumes yet."
"You don't think they're gonna bail on tonight, do you?"
"After all the planning we've heard? Nah, they'll be here."
Stephanie leaned back in her chair, threw her legs onto the central console and crossed one over the other. "Four bad guys in one night. Bruce will get a kick out of this. How are you doing, Cassie? Barely heard anything from you yesterday."
"Tired," Cassandra said. "Out too late with Damian."
It hadn't been true, she and Damian were finished earlier than usual the previous night. But it was easier to explain than anything else.
"Is Sadie feeling any better?"
Cassandra had braced herself for the question for the last day, but it still took a lot not to flinch when it was asked. "Fine, I think. Haven't heard much."
"Hope it wasn't food poisoning or something," Stephanie said. "That's nasty."
"We've been to that restaurant a dozen times," Tim said. "I really don't think that would have been it."
"So what will happen when they come?" Cassandra was sure she already understood what Stephanie was implying earlier, but she was desperate to change the subject.
"We've spent the last week rigging our defense protocols into traps," Tim said. "We're going to let them break in, lock the doors and let our security system take care of the rest."
"I mean, every now and again somebody finds their way into the Batcave," Stephanie said. "It always goes wrong, but it's because Bruce is never expecting it. We've got this place covered like crazy. They can bust in, we'll knock them all out and have them off to Blackgate by breakfast time."
"Miranda just switched on her uniform." Tim leaned into the keyboard to type a note. "Slipstream's online too. I can already hear them."
Stephanie smirked. "Did they ever decide how they're getting here?"
"Sounds like they're coming by car to keep from looking conspicuous. One of them's got a beat up white electrician's van, those things tend to be hard to track. They're not far, I'd say we've got thirty minutes, tops."
Stephanie and Tim fell into cycles of ensuring all of the equipment was working, which kept attention away from Cassandra. She could have used another night off, even being out on the streets would be easier than sitting with Tim and Stephanie, waiting in paranoia for one of them to return of the sore subject of Sadie. But for the most part they held attention on one another.
Finally, the time came. "They're trash talking our cover-building," Tim said with a chuckle. "One of them's trying to hack the elevator."
"You've turned the alarm off, right?" Stephanie asked.
"Yeah. Just got give them a minute to try breaking in. They'll get suspicious if they get it right away."
In one corner of the oversized monitor a camera feed began to play. It displayed four figures, mostly shrouded in darkness, huddled around the door of the elevator that led to the bunker. Stephanie and Tim both kept snickering for a few minutes before Tim triggered the elevator to activate and the four stepped inside. With another click, he killed the lights in the bunker proper.
"I don't know if you can properly appreciate this," Stephanie said. "But this is going to be hilarious. You got the sound capture turned on, Tim?"
Tim clicked again. "I do now."
"Awesome. I wanna hear just how pissed off they're going to be."
With the flip of a switch the bunker's lights flashed to life, several groans and raised came from the gathered Reapers. They were a colorful, diverse looking motley crew. Cassandra recognized Slipstream and Harmony from their confrontation at the bank, the giant in green and the figure in hot-pink only familiar from the blurry pictures.
Stephanie leaned over the microphone with a wide smile on her face. "Hi there! Looks like you guys have wandered into a restricted area."
The four searched, frantic, for the source of the voice. Slipstream shouted, "Not you again! Get out here, girly!"
"No, I don't think I will. I'm quite cozy on the other side of my impenetrable wall. Smile, by the way. All of you guys are on camera."
"Impenetrable my ass," Harmony said. She beat her gauntlets together and approached the wall the three heroes his behind. "I can rip this place apart."
"We only came for Figment's helmet!" The green giant, Jabberwocky stepped toward her. "Don't waste your—"
Stephanie took her finger off the microphone and leaned back. "Timothy, if you would please."
Tim flicked a switch of his own and killed the audio feed into the room. When Harmony's fist smashed into the wall, all four of them appeared to shout and keel over to various degrees, even Harmony herself. A dull ring slipped into the secondary room and Stephanie activated a few buttons in front of her, the screen read, Turrets 1-4 Active. Four panels on the ceiling slid open, four mounted machineguns descended into the room.
Stephanie turned to Cassandra, "Rubber bullets. Honest."
Stephanie and Tim had almost completely sealed the bunker's main chamber after the Reapers had walked in, causing the already violent sound of Harmony's sonic punch to amplify with the acoustics. Distracted by the ringing in their ears, none were prepared when the turrets unleashed their fury.
Another furious round of noise bellowed just beyond the wall. Harmony was both the least armored and the least prepared, the blasts laid into and knocked her to the ground swiftly. Slipstream took notice and retreated with his speed from the room's center, directly behind over of the turrets and tried to regain his composure. Jabberwocky buffeted many before Miranda stepped to his side and forced open a bright, purple force field that gave the two enough cover to outlast the attack.
Stephanie entered another command into the computer. Turret 6 Active. "Check out Tim's screen," she said.
Cassandra looked to Tim's side of the space as a secondary screen zoomed in on Slipstream.
Still sure he had escaped the line of fire, a spray of green adhesive hit Slipstream like a firehouse and pushed him backward and into the corner. His body was sealed to the wall with a desperate struggle and shouts that were all drowned out by the fire of rubber bullets.
Stephanie's smile turned to laughter. "Holy crap! This is great! I didn't even dream it would work so well! Make sure to goop up the girl with the sonic punches too, Tim."
With Slipstream and Harmony cocooned the gunfire came to a slow stop. The barrier of hard light Miranda and Jabberwocky hid in held for a minute afterward until the two revealed themselves again.
"Bastards!" Jabberwocky looked between his fallen comrades. "Get out here and fight us properly!"
Stephanie leaned up to the microphone again. "Buddy, I'm happy my suit is insulated. Yours can bend steel, if my notes are right. Don't talk to me about a fair fight." She swiveled her chair toward Tim again. "I'm gonna take him out. You sure about that thing with the lasers we talked about?"
"Oh yeah," Tim said with a nod. "I know what I'm doing, leave it to me."
Jabberwocky ran up to the wall Harmony had already damaged and laid into it with his fists. From the sound of his punches pounding against the steel permeating into the observation room, it was clear it wouldn't take much for Jabberwocky to break through the wall. The main screen zoomed in on the center of the giant's fists as a small, escalating series of numbers slowly increased until they hit "100%."
The giant's body fell off balance, his right arm slumped to the floor and he groaned.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Miranda demanded.
"My arm… I can't move my arm!"
"Yeah, we only had time to build a disruptor for one of your suits based on the schematics we got from your buddy's helmet," Stephanie said. "We couldn't figure out a better way to take you out, so we just rendered one of your robot arms unusable."
"Nice try, but this one disconnects." Jabberwocky punched a few switches on his arm as the mechanical pieces within unclasped from one another.
The screen zoomed in again, this time on his left leg. Within moments of detaching the arm from his suit, Jabberwocky's leg was also frozen in place.
"What is going on here?!" Jabberwocky pulled and struggled, his armor now had him pinned down. "I thought you were supposed to be Batman's junior cheer squad. What is this, a SAW movie?!"
"Well, I certainly hope not," Stephanie said. "I'd like this to be a one and done kinda deal. But if you guys wanna waste your time and money on a bunch of repetitive, crappy sequels, I guess it's your own fault."
"I'm gonna rip out her tongue!" Miranda attempted to push past Jabberwocky, but his dead suit weighed too much. With a shout she turned toward the spot on the wall as her hands started to pulsate with energy. "This is for making my team look bad!"
Miranda didn't get her chance. Tim pressed a last button and a blast of bright blue fired at her, pushing the villain backwards as she struggled to contain it.
She was almost laughing. "What is this, some big, fancy laser? You moron, I can absorb light!"
"I know how it works," Stephanie said. "The Doctor Light who isn't a complete creep works for the Justice League. Your suit is a colorful knock off of the one designed by the one who is a creep. Like, literally a rapist. I don't know how wearing that suit isn't making your skin crawl." As the blast continued to bear upon Miranda her knees began to buckle and a quiet but still audible groan followed. "We know your costume can absorb hard light. This laser is dense enough that you should be overloaded her any minute now."
Tim's screen projected estimates on how much Miranda's suit could contain. From the look of the rolling numbers, she was swiftly reaching capacity.
"You can't do this!" She shouted. "Do you have any idea what you're dealing with?"
"Couple of would-be criminals who are gonna get expelled from Gotham U as soon as the cops get 'em good and booked. Yup."
A scream followed. Miranda flew backwards as Tim killed the laser. Her suit sparked and crackled, but as Miranda threw her hands at the structural weakness her companions had made, nothing came.
Stephanie rose from her chair, pulled on her cowl and motioned that Tim and Cassandra follow her out. As she stepped in front of the two to where their four immobilized opponents lay, she nodded and admired her handiwork. "Now you're all in big, big trouble."
Within an hour and a half the Reapers, forced out of their costumes and into the street clothes underneath, were handed over to the police a mile from Stephanie and Tim's bunker. Stephanie waved goodbye to the four as they were driven off and leaned back with her companions. "Barely had to lift a finger and we still won. It was a good night."
Even Cassandra cracked a small smile. The attack from the bunker had distracted her for a little bit. Maybe things wouldn't turn out so bad after all."
As the police drove off with the Reapers and their equipment packed into separate squad cars, Cassandra switched her communicator to civilian mode. There was a single new text message from Sadie. She sighed internally, her heart beat a little faster, she wasn't sure she wanted to open it. But when she did there were only three short, straightforward sentences.
Haven't been sleeping well since the other night. Wanted to talk to you. Crazy busy with school stuff, how about this weekend?
Being in the condition it was, it wasn't as if Cassandra had much choice. She needed clarity on what had happened and what they both had done.
