THE BAT:
NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS
By LJ58
Part 4:
His name was Ra's al Ghul.
The Demon's Head.
And he had once been immortal. Or very close to it.
For centuries, he had used the Lazarus Pits to keep himself alive, young, and strong. Until recently they began drying up, or losing their efficacy. He wasn't sure why. He suspected it was something to do with the planet's fragile ecosystem which was continuing to decay, as he had warned the nations in vain for years.
He only knew that for one of the few times in his life, he was facing a very real death, and it frightened him. Not personally. Nor was it a fear born of religious anxiety, or concern for the state of his afterlife.
He feared for his League, his daughter, and his world after he was gone.
Those concerns drove him to try what deemed mad, and irrational attempts to expunge man's vile blight on the globe. The national leaders knew what they were doing, of that he had little doubt. They just did not care. In their mad quest for power and wealth, they squeezed his world like an overripe fruit, trying to take every last precious drop of life from it. They did not pause to consider that in the end, they would be killing themselves, and their own future generations. Or, more accurately, they did not care.
Wealth, and power.
Power, and wealth.
The capitalist democracies were literally fueled by those twin blades being repeatedly plunged into the very heart of the mother that had given man birth. And that fuel was being spread abroad in a misguided notion that the West could somehow civilize the planet by ensuring every other nation on the globe joined them in their mad rush to oblivion, like a pack of witless lemmings.
He had spent whole lifetimes trying to slow, or stop that mad rush to destruction. In all that time, only one man ever truly thwarted him. Only ever truly understood him. The man that his only daughter, and unwilling heir actually loved. It was incomprehensible to him, since the detective, while an admirable man, had no place for love in his dark heart.
Ra's knew the man well.
The true man.
At the very heart of him, he was as bleak, and ominous a soul as he himself.
He simply channeled his darkness into a misguided optimism as he vainly strived to remake the world in his childish notions of utopia. A world that could, and never would be.
"We are almost ready," Sayid reported as he came into the medical bay where now only machines kept Ra's malevolent will alive. His body was on the verge of collapse, and nothing could stop that. Nothing, except the few, rare and precious secrets his hidden scanners had managed to pry from Gordon and Wayne while they had been inside the specially prepared chamber meant to lure the dark knight to him for just such a covert examination.
"How….did the….rep…plication….go," he demanded in a weak stammer.
"We have achieved nearly eighty percent efficacy, great one," Sayid reported, his features grim.
"Only that," he grimaced.
"There were certain….elements in the scan the scientists could not decipher," he told him gravely. "Let alone copy, even with the technology at our disposal."
"It shall….have to be….e….en…..eh-nuf. Hurry," he rasped, and Sayid deftly disconnected him from the machines that kept his withering body alive, and rolled his entire bed down the hall to the waiting operating theater.
"If I do not….wake," Ra's hissed at Sayid as they approached the operating room. "Ensure my daughter….is well….before you…..avenge me," he spat.
"It shall be as you say, master," Sayid nodded. "But I am confident you shall be here to avenge yourself for his daring to spurn your offers."
"We shall see, my….my friend," he smiled weakly, and felt a dizzying rush that had his head spinning, and his vision blurring.
Then Ra's al Ghul, master assassin for generations in the League of Assassins, knew no more.
B
Wally grinned as he moved his legs slowly, forcing himself to follow Batman's instructions to the letter. That he was being forced to wait at least twenty-four hours to better allow the prosthetics to bond with his unique, superhuman metabolism was beyond chafing.
He wanted to jump up from his chair, his longtime prison, and run. Truly run.
He wanted to feel the speed his body still contained, and the joy of raw, unbridled velocity unleashed once more. Linda understood. She always had. She had stayed by him through the years, good and bad, and had been the only one that helped him truly cope when that bumbling Captain Boomerang had accidentally cost him both legs. He hadn't even been trying at the time, but his clumsiness had actually tripped up the fastest man alive, and being rather busy with a few henchmen firing wildly into a crowd of civilians, he had been slapping bullets from the air when Boomy, and his silly toys, blindsided him.
He lost one leg right then. The other broken, and the bones crushed badly enough they fhad to be amputated. The bad guys had gotten away, of course. Lantern showed up to take him to a private medical facility where he could be treated, but even the League couldn't grow back lost limbs. Not unless you were a meta that already had that power of regeneration. A very rare power, too.
He had spent years in therapy, fighting maddening dreams, and just remembering what he could do. It very nearly drove him insane. Thank God for Linda. And for Janey. Their daughter was a real chip off the old block, as Barry would have said. Which suited him just fine.
Now, though, he actually had legs again. Legs designed especially for him, and his unique metagene. The only question was if they would hold up to the demands a genuine Flash could put on them. After all, ordinary prosthetics didn't have a chance of surviving the friction and stress a really fast-moving Flash could generate. Neither could ordinary flesh. This stuff, however, Bats assured him could handle the job. He trusted him. Heck, Bats knew more about anything than anyone he ever knew.
Somewhere, back in his mind, he had always known the grim, determined man would be back. That no overgrown lizard was going to take him down. He wasn't even ashamed to admit he had cried when he heard the Batman was actually back, and still kicking butt. No, not ashamed, but he certainly wasn't going to share, either.
He looked down at his legs, and smiled.
"Soon," he murmured as he felt a telltale warping of the air around him.
"Hey, squirt," he grinned, looking right to the very spot Pulse stood when she stopped beside him where he sat in the League's medical bay listening to the monitors chirping around him. "How did the bank heist go?" "Amateurs," she huffed, pulling off the mask that was more like Kid Flash's old costume than his own. She liked her golden hair to flow free. She said it added to the image. "I barely had to do more than slap the guns out of their hands, and the lot of them were babbling for the cops to take them in."
"Well, they're not all that easy, so….."
"Don't get cocky," she finished. "I know, pops," she called him, winking as she tugged her mask back on. "So, when do you get the okay to try out the new gear," she asked, glancing at his pale legs beneath the hospital gown J'onn made him wear for the moment to keep him from yielding to the growing temptation to move before he was ready.
"Another three hours, nine minutes, and forty-seven seconds.
"Forty-six," he counted.
"And you claim I'm impatient," she laughed. "Later, pops," she grinned, kissed his cheek, and vanished all in the same instant.
"You are very lucky," a statuesque woman in red, white, and blue murmured as she entered the still open door yet to swing closed.
"Diana," he grinned at the Amazon who looked as young, and beautiful as ever. Naturally. "Looking good."
Diana chuckled. She was much freer with her emotions than many of his old colleagues. Except for Wally, who would likely never change. To her, he had learned, life was something you celebrated every chance you had, because you never knew when it might end. After all, even immortals could die. As Vandal Savage had learned the hard way a few years ago.
"Thank you, Wally. I hear you may be back on your feet very soon now."
"Well, J'onn is being cautiously optimistic, as always, but I gotta trust Bats. He's never been wrong."
"He's never been 'dead' for twenty years only to show back up looking as if he were rejuvenated by the gods, either," she said flatly. "I'm worried about him."
"You still got a thing for Bats," Wally grinned, his more weathered features still slightly boyish since he still didn't put on much spare weight thanks to his metabolism.
"Bruce…..Batman was always a friend, and an ally," she told him. "However, from what I've been hearing, he's beginning to behave….unlike himself. That concerns me."
"J'onn is keeping an eye on him, Diana," Wally told her bluntly. "If anyone can find out if there's something funny going on, he can."
"Perhaps. I just think we should be careful about how far we….trust him."
"You are paranoid. Guess that's your thing, though," he replied.
"What do you mean," she frowned.
"Being suspicious. I mean, you kind of don't trust anyone at times. Sometimes, you're worse than even Bats."
The Amazon's eyes narrowed slightly at that remark, but she smiled. "I would take that as high praise, were I certain truly certain that this is our Batman."
"Hey, Supes is convinced. And J'onn is, too. But I guess you have to do things your own way. I remember when you and Shayera were still butting heads. Then there was that time when you and Kara got into it. Then there was that four-armed guy..… What was his name again?" "Enough. I only came to see how you fared. Not to get a lecture from an overgrown child."
"Me? Lecture a goddess? Nah, not me, gorgeous," he grinned, and winked.
"I still don't see what your wife sees in you," she drawled as she shook her head, and turned to go. "You are still as bad as ever."
"Hey, she knows a good thing when she sees it," he grinned.
"Then love truly is blind," she snorted as she left.
"I'm not complaining, doll face," he shouted after her.
He didn't have to see her face, he could readily visualize her expression as she rolled her eyes, and her lips turned down, trying very hard not to smile. She was like that. A mixture of dignity and emotion that not many others seemed to get.
Not like him.
Or Bats.
He glanced down at his legs.
Three hours, four minutes, and nine seconds.
Eight.
And he was not that impatient, he mentally added. Not even close.
B
Batman studied the DNA sample he had acquired when he had covertly switched the cups the apparent Thomas Thorne had set down after sipping from in his office the night before when he visited. He had made the switch easily, then covered it by feigning an angry swipe at the coffee service, shattering the cup, and palming the piece of the rim with the DNA he wanted.
Thorne, or the Joker, never batted an eye at the display, and was still smirking as he had left.
He wouldn't be smirking long. He now had irrefutable evidence that Thomas Thorne was not himself. Not with a genetic matrix that was comprised of almost eighty percent DNA from that of the infamous clown prince of crime wrapped up in his chromosomes. He had to find the real Thorne before he could act on this, though. He had to ensure that Thorne really was safe, or if he was the apparent leader behind the resurrected Black Mask gang. Tonight, he would hunt masks. Tomorrow, he would know for certain if he was on the right track.
Even as he was reviewing the evidence before him, a lithe, willowy brunette entered the crime lab of the cave's much expanded operational base since his early days, and stared owlishly at him.
"Am I….disturbing you," the woman asked quietly, almost bashfully.
"No, Talia," he told her, his mask pulled back just then, but then she had always known his identity. At least, she had.
Just now, she didn't seem to know much beyond the ability to walk, talk, and reason. All personal memories, even those of her father, and her own heritage, seemed to have been either muted, or lost. They had feared she might lose some control of her body, or some of her memories when he and J'onn had performed the radical therapy using the Martian's phasing powers in conjunction with basic surgical techniques. Even with a modified neural web to compensate for the lost tissue mass in the brain, Talia had yet to regain any sense of her true self in the two days she had been awake.
She had recovered quickly enough, and showed little ill effects from the long sleep in cryo, but she moved more like a bashful child, than the well-trained heir to the assassin's guild led by her father. She smiled shyly as he looked back at her, and he set the evidence into a secure, refrigerated cabinet he locked before he turned back to face her.
"Not at all," he told her, fighting the impulse to take her into his arms, and make her his the way he once had when things had seemed simpler. Seemed, for he knew better than to think they ever had been. Not in their lives, or in their relationship.
He clenched his fists beneath the fall of his cape, and eyed her as he fought that impulse to make her yet another mother in his growing harem. "What is you wanted, Talia?"
"I….just wondered…..if I could go outside. I…..I wanted to see the sky."
"It would be daylight just now," he told her. "Too dangerous for either of us to show ourselves."
"Oh," she murmured, her dark head dropping. "I….just wanted to…..see things."
"I understand. I'll take you out tonight if you wish. But you must do as I say. Can you agree to that?"
Her smile reminded him of the old Talia. "Yes," she told him. "I will do whatever you say, Bruce."
He sighed. "When around others, you must never call me Bruce," he told her sternly. "When I am dressed like this, I am Batman."
"I don't like your mask," she pouted, looking all the world like a scolded child rather than a trained assassin. "It's scary."
"It's supposed to be," he told her as he began to mentally review his equipment, deciding what he might need tonight. "You must remember, too, my precautions are for your safety, too. You might not remember just yet, but you have enemies of your own that are as intractable as my own."
"Oh," she murmured, eyeing him thoughtfully as she followed him around he cave as he prepared for the coming night.
"Batman," she asked as he went to the Batmobile, checking it's fuel, and armaments. "Why can't I remember anything?" Batman turned from the rolling arsenal he had redesigned, and was keeping fully prepped since he had tipped his hand to the Joker, and now knew him for that selfsame madman. He eyed the woman he had already explained that very question to on five separate occasions since the operation, and wondered if her short-term memory had been damaged, too.
"You had a growing tumor," he began frankly. "J'onn and I….."
"No, no. I remember what you told me about that," she told him this time. "I….I just wonder….do you know why I can't seem to remember anything personnel?"
He rose from where he had been accessing the Batmobile's onboard computer, and stood before her, his eyes level with her own. "I think it has to do with our past. Our mutual pasts," he admitted.
"And….my father?" "You are starting to remember him?"
"Just….bits and pieces. He's….not a nice man, is he?" "No, he's not. In his own way, he thinks he is doing what is right, and views his actions as part of a greater crusade. Unfortunately, he's forgotten what is really important after fighting his personal crusade for so long that it is all that defines him any longer," he said, and the Batman frowned slightly as he realized that statement might well apply to him as well.
He had been fighting for decades. By now, he should be a broken, tired old man. If not a dead one. Yet here he stood. Tall, strong, and unyielding, and still pursuing his own personal crusade. The much older Talia who nevertheless looked just shy of thirtyish thanks to her long sleep in cryo, and her own use of the Lazarus Pits might have once shared his life had he but yielded his commitment in the slightest degree. One major impediment had always been her father.
He realized that while he might have the same unflagging commitment, that his crusade was nothing like Ras' had been. Or would be if he cheated death yet again. He wasn't giving any odds on the man's survival this time, but he had seen the ancient assassin cheat death too many times to write him off until he saw the body. Even then, he'd likely harbor doubts.
Ra's was that kind of opponent.
"I think, Talia," he told her sincerely, "It's likely because you are still divided in your heart and mind between us, and it's affecting your mental recovery."
"Us," she asked, looking confused, and nothing else.
"Your father, and I. We've taken different paths in life, and you were always torn between them. Between us. I think that was part of our trouble before I…..went away. To be honest, when you recover your memory, I don't think that will have changed."
Which was why he was still fighting an inner urge to take the still beautiful woman he remembered so well, and still loved as much as he could love anyone. That, and his theory of his own augmented instincts, including his reproductive drive, was nagging him about just how much his body was enhancing certain drives that were attempting to lead him, rather than simply guide him.
Case in point, three pregnant women who had been a part of his previous life. Three women that he had been strongly attracted to as well. Not to mention a fourth that a part of him genuinely wanted to claim now that she was obviously recovering, and showing signs of being a healthy, fertile woman again.
He still wasn't sure why the drive only seemed to focus on certain females in his life, but he felt keeping Talia here, around him, was not just for her safety, but a way to focus his own mind on his problem, and thus keep him from slipping up as he had the first three times his own animal instincts had overwhelmed his conscious mind and will to mark three females as his own.
He was going to have to find a solution to this in time, but first, Joker had to be dealt with before he could do whatever he was really up to out there. He believed none of that nonsense about being in love. He had to learn the truth. That meant finding young Thorne, and the Black Masks. He didn't need to see a clock to know he still had thirty minutes until nightfall. He could sense it coming. Sense the fading sun even as he sensed the heat and fertility of the seemingly innocent woman standing before him, digesting his words with such earnest intent.
"I….I don't know why, but I trust you, beloved," she smiled, using a word that slipped easily from her tongue, and lashed at his own memories.
He blinked, his body tensing as it reacted to that word that slipped through the cracks of her still recovering brain. She didn't even seem to realize what she had called him.
Not that it mattered.
He was the Batman. Master of the night, and moreover of himself. He would not let one single aspect of his body rule the rest. Especially that aspect.
"Time to go," he said gruffly as he turned toward the car. "Get in, but do not touch anything."
"All right," Talia smiled, and climbed into the passenger seat with a fluid grace even as he leapt into the driver's seat, and barely gave her a glance. Trying very hard not to notice how much she affected him.
He ruthlessly shunted that part of him wanting her aside, and focused on the job before him.
"Buckle up," he told her in the same gruff voice, and started the powerful engine that rumbled immediately with life.
B
Richard stared out of the Wayne-Tech offices, looking at the brightly lit city that sprawled out before him. It always amazed him that the city could look so bright, so pristine from here. Yet just a few blocks away from the newer construction the city retained a dark, gritty atmosphere that all the lights in the world could not dispel.
For years, driven by rage over his family's senseless murder, he had followed Bruce into that darkness, and then been sucked into a whirlwind of violence and adventure that even now seemed more a game to him than anything else. Of course, the stakes had been real, and written in blood, and he had never truly realized that even while facing monsters like Two-Face, Killer Croc, or even Bane until Whip had taken his arm, leaving him in a bloody, broken heap after their battle.
He had just barely survived that one. Had it not been for Tim, and Barbara, he would have died that night.
Now he had both arms back.
A part of him still wanted to leap out there into the night, and hurl himself between buildings as his soul thrilled to the acrobatic skill infused into him by his parents as he had grown being used once more. It was a lie, though. That thrill was a rush, much like a junkie's addiction. He understood that now. The need to show off. To inspire. To play the hero.
In the end, none of it was real.
Then there had been that memorial service on the moon with the new League.
He had looked at those heroes, and couldn't believe how young some of the faces were now. Had he ever been that young? He supposed he must have been, but he didn't feel it now. He had been propelled into a grim maturity far ahead of his years by Two-Face and his goons. He had been trained to take on a personal war embodied by a master of that war. Now he looked back and saw just a long, empty life.
He had hoped to fill that life, but Barb, the one woman he thought might understand him, and complete him, had now broken their ties completely. He wasn't sure of all the reasons, but he knew it focused on Bruce. She had always had a thing for him. From the day she had donned his mantle, and joined him in his quest to make the streets of Gotham safe for everyone.
A mad quest, he had come to realize even before he had lost his arm.
Maybe he had simply been unable to face his own mortality. His own advancing age. Bruce had said it right when he had warned the new League that it was no game. That you had to be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice in that world. How many times had he seen friends, or companions die. Some never to be honored as was their right. Very, very few had the miraculous returns that Superman, or even his own mentor managed. For the majority of mankind, even for heroes, death was still the inevitable end.
He saw a flash of light, and for a moment he thought it might be the signal. But Harvey didn't like that signal. Wouldn't allow it to be used.
Still, there had been something in the sky to the west for a moment.
He felt a nagging urge to react. To do something.
Instead, he turned away from the view, and looked back at the desk that was covered with work requiring his attention. This was his life now. His real work. Turning his back ruthlessly on the night beyond his office, he settled into his chair, and picked up the silver pen Bruce had left behind many years ago.
He knew he was doing the right thing, but for some reason he was having a bit more trouble enjoying the usual successes he once found in his day-to-day job as Wayne-Tech's CEO. He gritted his teeth, pretending he didn't hear the sirens outside, and tightened his grip on the pen. He was not going back to that life.
Absolutely not.
B
His name was Ra's al Ghul.
The Demon's Head.
And he was alive again.
He stood naked in the center of the gym, flexing his fists as he tried to understand this strange, new body he had been given. For while he had once more cheated death, he was not as he should be. Not as he expected to be. And he knew there was only one reason for that. One man was responsible.
He would face that man soon enough.
First, he had to access his new body's potential, and ensure he had complete mastery over it.
He had no doubt he would do so, but until then, no one would know of his survival. Only his faithful Sayid knew he still lived, and had not died in that miserable lump of decaying flesh that had been left behind following his operation. To ensure no one spoke of his changes, every one of the doctor's employed had been slain, their bodies cremated, leaving no trace of their passing. No one was left alive that knew anything of him, and so they could not speak. Could not betray him.
He nodded to Sayid to begin the exercise again.
This time, he would not fail. He would master this new body, and mold it into his own image no matter the time, or training required.
And then, he would kill the meddling detective himself once and for all.
B
Batman guided the sleek rocket through the streets with the skill of long practice, easily dodging civilians, and pedestrians as he followed the rolling tank that kept spitting out mini-rockets at him as it had with the police earlier. The woman beside him held to the arms of her cushioned seat with white knuckles, gaping at the small monitors that displayed the world around the insulated cockpit even as violent shock waves tried to do what the explosions erupting around them could not.
High over the skies of Gotham, a vague dark symbol lit the darkness within a brighter halo. The beacon the media had long ago christened the Bat-signal.
Batman knew it had nothing to do with the tank. He was already responding to the emergency calls from the beleaguered police when the signal flared to life. If Bullock had to resort to lighting up the old beacon while he had to know he was in the middle of an already dangerous situation, then he knew it had to be more than serious.
He waited for the armored vehicle behind him to falter, the signal its crew was reloading, and slammed on his brakes even as he pressed three switches in tandem.
"Touch nothing," he warned Talia even as the top over his head slid away, and he vaulted out into the night as the rush of air filled out his cape like great wings.
She fought back a scream as the vehicle's autopilot now steered the formidable Batmobile away from the tank even as it lay down small, studded spheres that proved to contain tiny charges within their innocuous bodies.
The figure of the Bat soared high into the air, propelled by the force of the pneumatic ejection system before his cape flowed out to form the distinctive wings that caught the air, and let him glide down, and behind the tank even as small, but devastating explosions erupted from beneath its tracks as it ran over the tiny spheres left in the Batmobile's wake. The massive vehicle ground to a halt just a few more feet from the first point of impact as its treads began to unwind, and left the assault vehicle without traction.
Five men emerged from the hatch without hesitation, all carrying automatic rifles. They aimed up at him, obviously not impressed by the return of Gotham's apparent champion. Tracers filled the air even as he banked, and dove at the men, feeling the impact of several rounds, but not slowing his own assault as he lunged at the men the very moment his boots touched the ground.
A flying dropkick leveled one gunman, even as two batarangs flew to drop the next pair. The last two men standing took one look at the caped hero who turned on them, and raced into the shadows in opposite directions. The move was fluid enough that the men had likely used it before now.
"Bad move," he growled, and flung another batarang, and he turned to leap after the second, somersaulting over the man, and landing in front of him.
A quick snap of one wrist blocked the barrel of the rifle coming up to bear on his chest, and easily twisted it from the thug's hands as he shattered the plastic weapon over one knee before grabbing the man, and flinging him hard against a nearby brick wall. He stood over the dazed criminal even as the police began to swarm the tank, quickly taking the unconscious men into custody as he used both hands to lift his prey up once more to meet his eyes.
"Where'd you get the tank," he growled.
"Are you nuts," the man squeaked. "They'd kill me if I squealed."
The Bat's eyes narrowed on him, the opaque lenses giving him a demonic look as he gazed down at the man he held in his fists. "What do you think I'm going to do to you if you don't," he growled, his voice echoing like gravel in an underground tomb.
The man shuddered, looking toward the approaching officers, begging, "Take me in. I give up."
"Can't," the first officer to approach him stopped, holding back his two companions. "I haven't seen anything yet to arrest you," he said blithely as he just stood there, knowing the way the Bat worked from tales from his father who had been a police officer, too.
"Want to last long enough to be arrested," the Bat growled again, slamming him against the wall hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.
"All right. All right. It was……"
The man gasped, and went limp in the Bat's hands even as he dropped the man, and spun around, his eyes searching the rooftops around him.
"What'd you do," one of the younger officers asked in shock.
"It wasn't him," the older officer snapped, coming to kneel beside the dead man. And he was dead.
"No," the Bat growled, looking down from the rooftops to eye the body. "But I know who did it. Don't touch those darts, sergeant," he stopped the officer about to reach for one of the tiny, slender darts in the man's throat. "They're sure to be poisoned on both ends."
"Damn," the man hissed, snatching his hand back. "That sounds like….."
"The Assassin's Guild," the Bat nodded. "It's apparently decided to take a hand in criminal activity in Gotham."
"My old man told me horror stories about them," the sergeant grimaced. "I always thought he exaggerated them."
"Not likely," the Bat said as he turned to the sleek, armored vehicle rumbling toward him just then. "Warn the coroner about those blades, too. Don't let him touch them without adequate protection."
"But….why would they kill a two-bit….?"
"Why, indeed," the Bat thought even as he gracefully leapt up to drop into the open cockpit of his newest Batmobile before the man could finish his thought.
Why kill a man to keep him from talking, when killing him all but confirmed who had armed him, and sent him and his friends onto the streets of his city with that death machine? It made no sense, and didn't show much of the sophistication of the Demon's Head he had come to expect when the guild was involved.
Unless Ra's had died, if he could think that confidently of such an event after all the times the master assassin had cheated death. To be honest, he still expected Talia's near immortal sire to yet come up with something to save himself from death one more time. Which meant an secondary may have sent out this new gang.
The question was; why? Especially when it bordered violating the oath the old man had given him. And Ra's had always taken his honor quite seriously. He still remembered that sad affair with Nigma when the master assassin had learned it had been him tampering with the Lazarus Pits. What had been left of the once brilliant, if twisted man had not been pretty.
Talia was gaping at him with wide eyes as she stared at his chest as he sent the Batmobile back down side streets to return to his patrol. "Something wrong," he asked her, wondering if he was pressing his luck by taking her where he was planning.
"You….You were shot. I saw you……shot. Why aren't you dead," she asked anxiously, gaping at him.
"Body armor," he said, taping his chest plate that barely showed the scars from the rounds that ricocheted off his chest.
She nodded. "I….I thought you were…..dead. For a moment, I thought….."
"I've been doing this a long time, Talia," he told her somberly. "Don't you remember that?" "Not….Not really," she finally admitted after a long pause, glancing away from his unrelenting stare.
"Well, I've been doing this longer than you might realize just now. And your father and I have often battled, as I told you. We might have to do so again."
"But…..he came to you for help. He came to you to save me. You told me so yourself."
"Your father isn't a fool," he said grimly as he noted another disturbance just a few blocks ahead, and steered toward it. "He knows how to exploit the talents of others when necessary. He just isn't too good at gratitude. Especially when he wants something."
"Oh," she murmured, and heard the rattling echo of gunfire as he pulled around a block, and entered a hell-storm of firepower as he put the Batmobile between the gang bangers, and the four beleaguered cops that were trying to hold out against the powerful automatic rifles in the hands of maddened children trying to kill them.
He eyed the gang members all wearing white handkerchiefs on their lower faces, and knew they were one of the new gangs to infiltrate Gotham in his absence. He had been studying them as he recovered from his ordeal in space, and knew they were bored, young teens who decided to turn from video games to live action games they took as seriously as those video fantasies that once amused them.
He stabbed a button, and smoke poured out of the undercarriage of the Batmobile as the teens now centered their fire on his vehicle, forgetting the police officers for the moment, and giving them time to get their injured comrades out of the line of fire, and regroup themselves as two more black and whites came speeding up even as the block was obscured by the artificial fog.
He didn't try to fight these deadly children one-on-one. There was too much danger of injuring, or killing bystanders the way they were indiscriminately firing into the fog now. He locked onto them with IFR, and launched a small canister right into the thick of the gang. The bright flash preceded a powerful tear gas of his own design that left the bangers stunned, and easy prey for the approaching police who now moved cautiously through the fog with masks on, emboldened by his presence.
Even as they quickly rounded up the teens, he was already pulling away.
He didn't even bother to disembark to question the teens. The sight of the same assault weapons in their hands told him all he wanted to know. The Assassin's Guild had armed them, too. How many others, he wondered as he turned grimly back to his patrol, seeing Talia's eyes still locked on the rear monitors that showed smoky silhouettes moving in the dispersing fog.
"Those were…..children," she gasped.
"No," he told him solemnly. "They long ceased being children when they stepped out into the streets, and started killing for amusement."
"I don't like this," she told him sincerely. "I don't like this world of yours at all."
He glanced over at her even as he neared the south entrance to the Park. "I've never liked it myself, Talia. But if I don't do something about it, who will?" "The….The police," she asked a bit hesitantly.
"Sometimes, even the police need help. Surely you've noticed that already."
She had nothing to say to that as he kept going, parking in the darkest part of the lot near the forested park that looked more than a little spooky to her untrained eyes. "Is there….trouble here, too," she asked as he pressed a switch that opened the Batmobile's canopy on both sides.
"No. Not here. Even the….. Well, no one in their right mind would make trouble here."
"Why not," she asked as she slowly climbed out of the vehicle to follow him into the shadows.
"Because," a voice like thick honey purred. "I protect this place," a sleek redhead clad in green stated as she came out of the darkness just then.
"Do….You know her, too," Talia asked, glancing sharply at the green-clad woman who embraced Batman.
"We have a long….history," he told her.
"Pamela, I need you to watch….."
"I know who she is, lover," Pamela Ivy cooed as she reached up to stroke his masked face after glancing only briefly at the woman in denim with a peasant blouse. "You're living dangerously. Moreso than usual. I hear half of Gotham has been armed by the assassins tonight just to hunt you. Is she why?" "Not exactly. I told him no again."
"Ah," the elemental creature pressed against him nodded. "I remember how poorly he takes refusals."
"I didn't know you had met," he stated, looking down into bright, green eyes.
"Not…directly. But over the years I have had….invitations."
He said nothing to that, just glanced lower, asking, "How are you doing?" "It's a very natural thing, lover," she cooed. "And you know how well I do with nature."
"Yes, I do. Just watch Talia for me for a little while. My place was getting a little close for her, but I couldn't too well take her just anywhere else just yet."
"Of course. You can count on me," the elemental purred as she continued to embrace him.
"Be careful. Some of those armed gangs might try coming after you, too."
"Only if they're really stupid," she smiled.
He nodded, and looked back at Talia before he started to leave. "You can trust Pamela, Talia. Do as she says, stay close, and don't go anywhere alone."
"All right," she nodded quietly.
He had already vanished even as she spoke, lost back in the shadows before she realized he was gone.
"I hate when he does that," Pamela sighed.
"So do I," she sighed. Then frowned as she stared into the darkness as the faint whine of jet turbines roared to life, and then faded from hearing as he left. "How do I know that?" Pamela eyed her. "You lost your memory?" "I….had a brain tumor. Bru….Batman operated on me with a friend, and saved my life. But it left me…..well…..with a big hole in my head where my mind used to be."
Pamela nodded. That slip fit easily into her own suspicions that had been growing from years past, and tailored perfectly into the new information she had to date.
Bru…..as in Bruce.
Bruce, as in Bruce Wayne.
Now she knew who her lover was after years of seeking his identity.
She knew there were men that would pay well for such knowledge. Even now, there were growing debates over whether the Batman really was the same man that disappeared some twenty years ago, or not. She had no doubts. She didn't understand how he had come back so young, and revitalized, but she knew it was him. She could sense such things.
"So, you don't remember anything," she asked the willowy brunette that truly seemed a blank slate to her just then.
"No," Talia sighed. "I….I almost grasp things at times, but then they slip away. He thinks it may be my past warring with my heart."
"He usually is right," Pamela told her sincerely. "Although I didn't appreciate it at the time, he was always quite clever. More than clever, actually," she laughed softly as she stared around her, drinking in the pastoral setting like air into her lungs.
"You seem…..happy now," Talia noted.
"Yes, I am," the woman admitted. "Because I finally listened to him."
B
Ra's stood atop the building, the hooded cloak he wore billowing around him as the powerfully built cyborg beside him listened quietly to the speaker on the cell he had just answered. "Very well. I will tell him," Sayid said in a grim tone.
"He stopped them all," Ra's said curtly without waiting for his comrade to report.
"Yes. There wasn't even a single fatality. A few dozen incidental injuries, but not one death. The detective wasn't even scratched."
"That does not surprise me," the assassin drawled as his eyed scanned the city.
"Perhaps this will, master. He brought your daughter with him. She was left at Gotham Park with the plant elemental."
"Did he? Then she is well?"
"Our agents report she looked quite well," he nodded, putting his phone away. "A bit pale, but that is to be understood."
"So. Ivy. I had heard….rumors. All the same, I wish my daughter retrieved from the detective's care, Sayid. Immediately."
"I shall handle it personally," he told him.
"No. I have another job for you. That is something I want you to handle….personally."
Sayid glanced at his master, and mentor. "You know I serve only you, master. Command me."
Ra's smiled. It was not a comforting smile.
B
The men came out of the night, a full dozen, operating in teams of three.
The trios were a mark of the guild Ra's had instigated sometime back, he knew. He also knew they weren't trying to kill him. They were delaying him. He had spent a long night disarming, and taking down gangs, thugs, and punks, all with the same weaponry. By the time he reached Bullock, it was to hear what he already knew. That someone was arming even the lowest slime on the street with high-tech automatic weapons, and turning them loose on the streets.
He had found two warehouses where the weapons where being distributed, and shut them down. He knew there had to be more. He just didn't have time to locate them when he was still trying to quell all the brush fires popping up all over the city. Nor did it help that he was concerned for Selina as much as the other women in his life just then.
He wouldn't put it past whoever had started this conflagration to try taking them just to get under his skin. Whomever it was, they obviously had no intention of honoring Ra's earlier vows he would back off. Leaving the new commissioner, new to him, with banal assurances, he had quickly returned to the streets, and finally managed to quiet things down just a few hours after midnight.
That was when they came.
The twelve assassins.
Perhaps they thought he would be fatigued by now. At any ordinary time in his life, he would have been. Even then, however, he would have managed. Now, with his newly augmented form, they didn't have a chance.
Even as he as dropping the last man, a metallic tube dropped from a nearby rooftop, followed quickly by a man in black.
"Looks like you needed a little backup tonight," the man in the dark mask drawled as he straightened up from his drop, revealing the avarian wing design in white etched across his broad chest.
"Thought you were out of the game," Batman asked as he quickly secured the assassins in bonds even they couldn't escape.
"I was. Until someone tried to blow up Wayne-Tech right under my nose," he spat. "Then I realized what a war zone the streets had become, and….." Nightwing shrugged. "Seemed the League was busy with some threat in the Pacific, so I thought you might need a little help."
"Thanks. But I knew about the shooter on the roof."
"Then consider it a courtesy," Richard drawled. "You might have ducked the RPG, but I doubt those people watching from the windows would have been as fortunate."
"I knew you had him covered," Batman drawled as he headed toward the Batmobile again.
Nightwing shook his head, trying not to feel like the novice as he seemed to know everything all at once, without seeming to give any indication of that fact. Some things, he sighed, truly did not change. Not with his mentor.
"So, what's next."
"I think we'd better….."
"All units. All units. Disturbance at the mayor's mansion. All units respond."
The two looked at one another, and both leapt as one into the Batmobile, it's engines firing to life even as the Dark Knight settled behind the wheel. "So much for the vaunted word of Ra's al Ghul," he growled so somberly that even Nightwing had never heard the pure rage in his voice until just then. "He's the one involved in all this," he asked lamely, knowing it could be no one else.
He didn't get an answer. He didn't need one.
B
Barbara heard the shouts from her bodyguards even as she sit up in bed. A shiver of cold fear traced her spine as she recalled the nightmare she had been having, and for a moment feared it was him. Only even Joker had never realized that Batgirl and Barbara Gordon were one and the same. After all this time, it seemed unlikely he would track her down for some insane vendetta.
Of course, that pale freak was the very definition of insane, so you couldn't exactly expect anything out of him except the unexpected.
Still, the sounds of gunfire, and men screaming, men dying, did not sound like his usually subtle tactics just now.
Of course, there were times he had been as subtle as a jackhammer.
Ruthlessly shoving back her fear, she swung her legs to the floor, still glorying in her ability to move them after years of helpless paralysis. And if what she suspected was true, she was coming to life in more ways than one. Pretty good for a woman one step away from early menopause who had been chained to a wheelchair for so long.
Even as she considered going to the window to check out what was happening, a man in black garb from head-to-toe appeared in her doorway, holding up two very wicked daggers that gleamed silver in the dim light, resembling nothing more than two shiny fangs.
She gave a soft cry of disbelief even as he flung those blades, and instinct had her moving, somersaulting across the room to snatch up a small nightstand to intercept the blades obviously meant for her heart.
"Guess the whole kidnapping and ransom thing isn't involved here, is it," she asked as she pulled one of the daggers free and hurled it back to strike the man in his right shoulder.
The moment he stiffened, convulsed, and fell dead at her feet, she knew she was in trouble.
These weren't garden variety rent-a-thugs. This guy was a real assassin, and that dagger obviously meant for her had been poisoned.
"Time to get serious," she rasped as she fled to a closet where a great many dangerous secrets still lay hidden behind a hidden panel. She stared at the old costume, but felt it wasn't what she needed just now. Not when there was another lunatic who might just put a few things together if an apparent Batgirl showed up in the mayor's house when she was attacked.
She snatched a few things she had collected over the years, and quickly pulled them on over her body after all but ripping off her nightgown. She told herself she was only doing this to mask her identity, and protect her reputation, but another part of her couldn't help but thrill to the idea of once more throwing herself into the fray after being denied for so many years.
Padding over to the window, she looked down to find only a handful of her guards left, trying to hold back the shadowy figures that seemed to be cutting them down with relative ease. Bodies were strewn all over the lawn in front of her home, and she guessed the guards at the rear were likely gone, since that one bastard had made it all the way to her bedroom. Time to make an appearance, she told herself grimly as she fired the reliable zip line, and reveled in the weightless rush of nearly flying as she soared from the second floor of the mansion to the nearest tree.
After all, it wouldn't look too good for a vigilante's help to come from right out of the mansion itself.
Dropping down from the tree, she crept right behind one of the assassins even as she simultaneously fired a small cross-bolt from the wristband of her makeshift costume. The man dropped as the drugged dark struck him full in the back even as a practiced spin kick dropped her prey in front of her with a dull crack of his spine.
"Damn," she hissed, knowing she had not meant to kick him that hard.
It was as if her reflexes and strength were amped up on super-charged adrenalin.
Still, he was a bad guy, and that was two down.
"Better stop daydreaming, gorgeous," a silky voice cooed as something fast, and deadly dropped down on a man behind her even as he was stalking her. "Or you won't last long in this biz."
Even as she spun to take in the sight of the tall, willowy and very furry figure with an honest-to-god tail trailing in her wake as she spun wildly through the air as she jumped from one assassin to the next, she shouted, "Selina!"
"Have we met, sweetie," Selina demanded even as her claws raked the face of one man, blinding him as her right leg lashed out to send another assassin flying even as she simultaneously dodged a wild shot from one of the panicked guards.
"In passing," she said, and chiding herself for her inattention, focused on the job at hand, and quickly aided the anthropoidal feline she had not seen in years in putting down the rest of the assassins.
"The mayor," one of the guards came running up to them. "We can't find the mayor," he exclaimed with obvious worry.
Selina gave a soft purring as she eyed her again as they stood among the guards that focused on disarming, and securing the fallen assassins, and smiled.
"Don't worry, little man," she murmured with that growling voice of hers almost mocking as she eyed Barbara. "We got the mayor out before her friends came out to play. We'll bring her out of hiding after we're sure this is over."
"Word is…..these guys have attacked the entire city," another of the guards exclaimed. "The Bat has been out all night trying to mop them up. Thank God he sent you here to help," he added as he glanced around him. "I thought we were all done for. The mayor especially."
"As my furry friend said," Barbara said quietly, lowering her voice the way Bruce had once taught her to do even when caped. "The mayor is hidden someplace safe. We'd better check the grounds before we let our guard down though," she suggested.
"Good idea," the guard nodded even as mocking laughter rang out.
They spun around, and a man in a circus vest with a glowing red eye smiled coldly at them as he lifted a gleaming, chrome rifle. "Two heroes at once," the cyborg assassin smiled. "The Master shall surely reward me for this night's work," he stated as he armed the weapon that began to hum with a shrill wine.
"Where do they get these guys," Barbara exclaimed even as Selina tensed, her hearing assailed by the shrill sounds that assaulted her heightened hearing.
B
Talia stared around her as Pamela walked her through the park lit by the sliver of moon that was enough to light the lush greenery around them. "It's a very beautiful place," she told Pamela as she walked beside her. "I can see why you like it here."
"I once wished the entire world could be like this again," she sighed. "But that is not to be. Not so long as men walk upon the earth."
"But…..wouldn't that make things just as bad for some people? I mean, how would people live? How would they work, or find help if they needed….I don't know, doctors, or something like that? Don't you need some civilization, too?" Pamela sighed as she stopped to stare around her at the pristine park she kept in prime condition despite the city that surrounded it, threatened to choke it, and yet somehow was held back by her enigmatic relationship with the flora and fauna of her world.
"You speak of harmony. Balance. That is a part of what nature is all about, Talia. I forgot that for a time, but he reminded me. Just as he reminded me I myself am a part of that balance. Still, men in general tend to overlook the need for such harmony in their mad quest for more and more at the cost of their own world, risking even their own descendants' survival."
"Now you sound like my father," Talia drawled.
"You….remember that?"
"Only….pieces. As I said, it comes and goes. But….I think I have heard that reasoning many times. Often enough that it has apparently stuck with me even now."
"I heard it from him, too," Pamela admitted as they strolled to a line of thick, high oaks that bordered the dark waters of the bay. "He….approached me a few times, thinking I would welcome his guidance in my own ambitions to rid the world of such abuses. All I heard from him, however, was the same rhetoric, and threats that seem to spill from all those in power."
"Yes," Talia nodded. "I think…..I think very few are willing to do more than look beyond their own thirst for power in the quest for their goals. Not even…..my father."
"He is. He does," Pamela murmured even as Talia gave a soft yelp as unseen hands pulled her into the darker shadows behind the trees.
"Assassins," Pamela hissed, turning to face them. "Trespassers. How dare you…..?" "Be silent, plant," one of the men spat, and opened fire on her with a small semi automatic.
"Pamela," Talia cried out, reacting instinctively as she drove an elbow into the gut of the man holding her even as she spun around and leapt up to drive a hard heel into the face of another man. By the time she reached the gunman, Pamela had gone down under a hail of bullets. It did not stop her from driving a lethal palm into the man's septum, shattering his nose as the cartilage splintered up into his brain, dropping him instantly.
Ignoring the other two still gasping for air, she raced to Pamela's side, even as the woman rose from the ground with emerald fire blazing in her eyes. "Vile, misogynistic, intruders," she snarled with all the rage of an indignant goddess.
"Let there be an end to you," she railed even as Talia saw the bloody holes in her body glowing faintly emerald green as they healed with a swiftness that was beyond natural even in her world.
Even as she was speaking, Pamela's hands rose, and the three bodies rose in the grip of thick, massive vines studded with deadly spines. The two living men howled in agony as the deadly toxins from those spines pierced their flesh and began the work of ending their lives.
"Pamela, stop," Talia cried, hearing a strange rustling all around her, and men crying out in pain from the shadows. "Pamela, you can't just kill them. Remember….. Remember what you told me about him? Remember what Batman taught you."
The redhead calmed somewhat as her eyes gradually returned to normal, but the look of fury was still there. Mingled with fear. "I…..I know. Still……If they hurt our baby," she said, and for a moment it looked like the woman was torn between weeping, or lapsing back into her earlier rage. Then she face calmed, and her serene features returned as she nodded. "For you. For him, I will relent. But that does not mean I'll leave them to go their way unscathed," she said with as cold a tone as Talia could remember ever hearing just then as her eyes began to glow even more brilliantly than before, and she seemed to look out at a world only she could see.
B
The Batmobile raced through the streets, past fires, and countless ambulances, and rescue units still reacting to the chaos of the night's events. Even as they considered stopping their rush to reach Barbara to aid those yet in need, they began to notice something that was very much out of the ordinary.
Along the streets, once filled with thugs, bangers, and cops fighting for their lives, now, only the cops were walking freely, obviously stunned to find their criminal counterparts securely wrapped up in the thick, unyielding vines that held them until they could take them into custody. Along with the usual offering of such criminals, they occasionally spotted a masked assassin squirming vainly to escape .
"Looks like Ivy finally decided to get involved tonight, too," Nightwing commented as they turned up the private lane that led to the mayor's mansion where half a dozen squads were already arriving at that very moment.
"I expected it," Batman drawled.
"You say that like you almost counted on it," Nightwing observed.
"Let's say it occurred to me she might be drawn into this when I dropped Talia off in her care."
"Wow," the still younger hero drawled. "You are still unbelievable. You know that?" "In this business, you either stay ahead of your opponents, or you die."
"Ouch. Well, it's not like I don't know that by now," he exclaimed.
After a moment he added, "Do you think Barb….?" "We'll know when we get there."
Which was just a scant thirty seconds later when they both jumped from the idling vehicle to find Selina standing next to a brunette in a sleek, black bodysuit with silver bands on her wrists that looked very familiar to the perceptive.
"A friend of the Huntress," Batman asked knowingly as he eyed her mask that was tied over the top of her head, and covered her face to her pert nostrils.
"You could say that," she nodded, and then glanced up at the man dangling from a wire by his heels, bound in a thin, wire net that was shimmering with occasional sparks. "I take it you came for this guy?" "Sayid," he nodded. "Ra's al Ghul's lieutenant."
The unconscious man was not the only victim. Everywhere about them, any assassin not already caught was writing in the grip of those massive vines that had risen out of the ground to snare them. "And I suppose Ivy helped out here, too," Selina asked a bit cattily.
"She was likely provoked," Batman drawled as Barbara stared at Nightwing.
"I'm surprised to see you here," the apparently new heroine drawled a bit curtly. "Weren't you retired?" "As Ivy, I was….provoked," he told her, his heart telling him this was Barbara, but his mind unable to conceive of the possibility as being true.
"Where is the mayor," he asked.
"Safe. I'll bring her back when the mansion is secured again," she told him bluntly as one of the guards approached them even as Batman cut Sayid down.
"You seem surprised to see us, lover," Selina followed him to purr in his ear.
"Not so much surprised, as…..relieved. I had not realized…..she was capable of defending herself so well as yet."
"She has a bit of rust on her," the older woman chuckled softly, "But she is still a real hellion when she's inspired. I think this machine was far more surprised when she flew at him.
"He never stood a chance."
"I won't lament her fortune, but she needs to be careful."
"Tell that to the men she saved," Selina grunted.
"So, what brought you here," he asked as he pulled a stimulant from his belt, and waved beneath the cyborg's nostrils.
"I was visited earlier this evening by a few of these thugs. A little convincing, and they told me their other targets. You, I knew, could handle them. Like you, however, I wasn't so sure about….the mayor. Imagine my surprise to see this little vixen taking out the thugs as easily as anyone I'd ever seen More than one are going to need medical care, though. I think she's stronger than she looks."
"A….byproduct of the treatment," he said as Sayid moaned, and slowly began to shake his head as he regained his senses.
"Hello, assassin," Batman's cold eyes focused on him when he regained his wits.
"You," the man hissed.
"Me. Where is Ra's? What happened to him, and why did you attack my city? Answer me."
Sayid glared at him, fear evident in that one human eye, but still holding out stubbornly. "I would never betray my master, or my comrades, vigilante," he spat. "You should know that."
"Tonight's folly has seriously crippled your guild, and your master's waning power," he told him curtly. "We had a pact. Why was it violated? Who ordered this attack?"
Sayid refused to speak even as Batman's hand moved to his belt, and pulled out a small, gray square that he held carefully by one flat edge. "Do you know what this is, Sayid?" The cyborg glared, but his fear was more obvious than ever as both eyes focused on the small memory card.
"I can shut down your cybernetic systems for good with this," the detective threatened as he held the pronged edge close to his eyes. "I just have to slip it into your maintenance port, and you'll find yourself a cripple again. Nor could you be rebuilt. This program also dampens your neurological responses, making future upgrades impossible. Now, what is your choice, assassin?" "Go to hell," he spat, struggling vainly with the electro-magnetically charged net that held him captive, circumventing his mechanically-enhanced body.
"You first," Batman growled, and slid the small memory card into the hidden port just beneath his gaudy vest.
Sayid's scream echoed for several minutes before his body went absolutely still, and for the first time in many years, tears fell from his one human eye as he stared helplessly up at the dark silhouette stooped over him.
"Enjoy the rest of your life, assassin," he growled as he rose to tower over the inactive cyborg.
"Damn, lover," Selina exclaimed as they walked back over to join Nightwing and the masked mayor. "I didn't know you had developed such a mean streak."
Batman glanced at her, then at Barbara, and turned toward the Batmobile as he remarked, "You two had better get the mayor back so she can reassure the people of Gotham that this madness is over. I'll talk to Bullock before I…..finish my patrol. Nightwing," he glanced toward his former partner. I could use a ride," the young man nodded. "I'll catch up with you later….."
"Vixen," Selina smiled as Barbara was caught flatfooted as several of the officers turned to listen to them, wondering themselves just who she was. "This is Vixen."
The newly christened heroine smiled as she added, "But I'm not sure if I'll be doing this too often. It's….still a bit much to take in."
"We'll talk later," Batman growled, and climbed into the Batmobile.
"Count on it," Vixen agreed.
"Yeah," Nightwing echoed, casting a last glance back at her before he climbed in to speed off with him as the pair were left standing alone for a moment.
"Did you anticipate that," Nightwing demanded as they raced back into the heart of the city.
Batman, understanding completely, merely stated, "Not at first. After J'onn's report on your reaction to the new arm, however, I…..suspected something of the sort might occur."
"When were you going to mention it to us," he demanded.
"I already informed Barbara of what to expect."
"Terrific," he grumbled. "So, are you two…..?" "You're both adults. Ask her yourself."
He had nothing more to say to that as they returned to the city, and oversaw the last mopping up of the more daring criminal element that had tried to strike at the very heart of a fearful city, thinking their chances were better than one lone vigilante playing hero. By morning, the overcrowded cells, and hospital rooms, would tell them all just how wrong they had been.
B
Some blocks away, atop a seemingly deserted building, a long figure stared at the result of the night's campaign and screamed into the night. If that voice was more than a bit shrill, and manic, perhaps they could not be blamed.
Overnight, the entire contingent of the Assassin's Guild in Gotham had been stopped, paralyzed, and rendered impotent because of one man. One man that seemed as untouchable as ever before. The scream echoed for a long time over the streets of Gotham, and if it seemed to go unheard, it was only because of the greater chaos of sirens, and calls for help still ringing through the air over much of the city.
TO BE CONTINUED………