AN: No one guessed the cannon thing! *pouty face* But wait a second, doesn't that mean it will be an even bigger shock? MWAHAHAHAHA! Thanks for all your reviews! Due to popular request, I'm gonna have to go with longer chapters.

Thanks again to my beta: TooCreative4Life

Disclaimer: Is Wally still in the same dimension as Artemis (still in denial)? No? That's proof I don't own YJ.

It was all Superboy's super-hearing's fault. If his ears weren't so good, then he wouldn't have heard the beeping and the Team wouldn't have found the device. It looked like a rustic recorder, like the ones used in old detective movies, but the fact that it was deploying almost inaudible beeps in all frequencies guaranteed it was anything but.

Despite Whisper's hesitation, Aqualad decided to bring it back to the Cave and give it to Batman, so in a few minutes, they were all in the Bioship, well on their way from the old warehouse in Star City that had been transmitting unknown signals. Whisper had a feeling that they had found the source of those unknown signals, but whether it was for better or worse was still undetermined.

The device had been placed on the dashboard of the Bioship, where is resided for the trip, still broadcasting the quiet beeping that only Superboy could hear properly. They had been traveling for ten minutes, only a fourth of their estimated flight time, when Superboy suddenly spoke up and said, "It's Morse code." The entire Team turned to the clone, eyebrows furrowed.

"Uh, Supey, what's Morse code?"

Superboy gave an irritated look to Kid Flash and crossed his arms. Clearly, he figured that whatever he was talking about should've been obvious. The Team was still clueless, except for Whisper, who had a hunch, but hoped he was wrong.

"The thing's beeping. I just realized it."

Of course. Only two days after Christmas and something mysterious and potentially troublesome had already shown up. Why Whisper didn't ask Santa for a year of peaceful missions, he wasn't sure. But then again, Bruce and Alfred's gifts of money (lots of it) and a permanent room at the mansion were pretty awesome, too.

Money and a room didn't fix the issue at hand though. "Can you decipher the meaning," questioned Aqualad.

Superboy scowled further and scrunched up his eyebrows. "I-I think it's a code. Like a list of letters and numbers." The clone concentrated for a moment before speedily rattling off, "B-2-r-5-d-j-2-t-s-1-d-0-b-3-h-a."

Quickly pulling up his holo-computer, Whisper entered the code before double-checking it with Superboy. Upon receiving confirmation, Whisper turned to Aqualad. "Do we see what it does now or wait until we're back at the Cave with Batman?"

The Atlantean paused. Something about the entire situation wasn't quite right. It all seemed too easy, too planned. Perhaps having Batman assist them in this would be beneficial to the Team's overall success. Facing the resident hacker, Aqualad calmly commanded, "Wait until we arrive at the Cave."

Whisper just nodded and turned his glove off.

The good thing was that Batman was waiting at the Cave when they arrived. The bad thing was that Batman was waiting at the Cave when they arrived. Whisper was curious, but not to the point where he wasn't extremely wary of what the code would mean.

Walking into the Cave felt like it took twice as long as it should've. Their was...a feeling in the air, a warning, but none of the others seemed effected. Batman, Superman, and Red Tornado, who were waiting for the Team in the mission briefing room, didn't even look on edge.

It was only Whisper.

Five minutes later, after the situation had been confirmed and the code had been confirmed by Superman (who apparently had been dragged there by the Dark Knight himself), Batman pulled up a holographic screen and sent out a frequency using the cipher. Not a moment after that, a bar appeared, filling up slowly. Over it, a black and gray owl was frozen in flight, its talons the only white thing in the picture. As soon as the animal popped up, Whisper froze. He needed to cut the transmission, now.

However, just as he took a step forward, the screen transformed into gray. A second passed, and it cleared, displaying a man sitting in the middle of an incredibly dark room. He had dark, slicked back hair and a thin mustache hovering between his nose and upper lip. Feliciano Dimuerte gave a predatory smile and clenched his hands together under his chin, leaning forward. "Why hello...you're going by Whisper now, correct?"

"What do you want," Whisper gritted out. He knew he should be scared half to death, or at least be more respectful unless he wanted to end up severely maimed, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything but anger. It seemed every time Whisper sound somewhere he belonged, where he was happy, Feliciano and the Talons ended up ruining it. Even if they had nothing to do with his family's death, they still ripped him away from the circus and here they were again, threatening to rip him away from the Team. Last time he had been at the base was not pleasant. It had lasted for two years, two years of pain of torture, and he knew for a fact he wasn't going back there. After all, Feliciano couldn't hurt him. He was probably in another country; all he was was floating pixels and words.

The assassin just chose to ignore Whisper's obvious anger and replied slightly airily. "Oh nothing much. I was just wondering if you happened to know where one of my old students was."

At that, Whisper really wanted to skip the formalities and start cussing Feliciano out. For his time with the Talons to be referred to so...casually was not okay. Luckily, Whisper managed to calm his inner anger. Instead, the teen settled for glaring and saying, "I never took you for the kid type."

The man just raised an eyebrow, dark malice glittering in his eyes. "Well, we both know appearances can be deceiving. Now, his name is Richard Grayson, orphaned acrobat and all that. Perhaps you've heard of him?" When no response came form Whisper except for a clenched jaw and fists, Feliciano just kept talking. "Oh, come now. I know for a fact you know who he is; I'll even bet you know where he is. All I need from you is to give him a message."

The anger inside Whisper swelled further. At the back of his head, he noted that Batman would be trying to figure out how his biggest failure was alive, so if anything needed to be said without the Dark Knight fully registering it, now was the time. But, honestly, Whisper couldn't think of a single thing that needed to be said except for some rather foul language. Still, the only way to get Feliciano off his back was to carry the conversation through to the end, so he had better continue. "And that message would be?"

"Nothing too important. Just that we, that is the League of Talons and myself, would be extremely grateful if he would be so kind as to meet with us."

That caught Whisper's attention. He had learned to read Feliciano's movements and the man was practically oozing confidence, even through the cameras. The question was, why was Feliciano so arrogant. Whisper cast a quick glance from the corner of his eye at Batman, who was staring at the ground, still hypothesizing ways of the acrobat still being alive. The teen turned his attention back to the screen, swallowed, and said dangerously, "Why would he agree to that?"

The grin grew. "Why wouldn't he? We, after all, are his family. And if he's slightly reluctant, I hear he's found a group of people he cares about very much. It would be a shame if they got injured."

All of the anger rushed out of Whisper's body, only to be replaced by dread. Feliciano was threatening the Team and the League. Whisper felt like hitting himself on the head. He had let his emotions get the best of him and hadn't realized that of course the Talons would have a backup plan; they weren't stupid enough to think Whisper would come with them at the drop of a pin. And while the youth had faith in the heroes, they would be unprepared on how to fend off the Talons. They would all eventually die. "Where," Whisper croaked, defeated. The assassin had played the perfect card and knowing Feliciano, he would follow up on it.

"Why that's easy, where it all began." On that ominous note, the screen clicked to black, leaving a shell-shocked Whisper and confused heroes. The silence only lasted for a few moments, though. Superman, Red Tornado, and the majority of the Team turned to Batman, who had gotten over his surprise in time to hear the last few sentences of Whisper's conversation. The Dark Knight silently turned around and pulled up a keyboard, already getting straight to work.

Whisper bit down on his lip, eyebrows furrowed. He really didn't want to do it, but he knew it would eventually come. As soon as he was sure that Batman's eyes were off of him, Whisper bolted. They wouldn't know he had left until they turned to look at him, and by then, he would be gone. The teen dashed into his room and snatched up his red notebook. He had prepared for that after Wally's heart transplant mission, despite desperately wishing that he never had to use that particular contingency plan.

Whisper pulled off his right glove and placed it next to the notebook on his bed. He turned to go, but paused at the door. Looking down guiltily, Whisper made a split second decision and hurried back to his bed. He had already added an extra note at the end of the letter to try and lift the readers' spirits, but this needed to be said. Scribbling one last sentence at the end, Dick rose before turning once again.

Knowing what was going to happen next, Dick forged onward. The last time he had gone with the Talons, it hadn't been voluntary, but now, it was different. He had a chance to do something with his life for others and the last few months definitely wouldn't be in vain. Dick had made friends, had grown close to these people. Now, he was wondering how he ever survived without Wally's constant jokes or Artemis' tough-girl attitude. Dick definitely couldn't fathom life without Bruce's constant presence, always there, always strong. In return for everything they had ever given him, he was going to do everything his parents had ever expected of him and help others, even if it killed him. Danger be damned, Dick was not going to let anyone so much as touch the Team.

Whisper steeled himself before walking into the garage. Pushing his motorcycle to the door, he looked back regretfully. Shaking his head, Dick mounted the bike and started it, determined to not let anyone harm his real family.

Batman was an idiot. He should've realized after the conversation between Whisper and the man dubbed 'Feliciano' that something wasn't right. But he was too shocked by the news of Richard Grayson being alive to fully pay attention to the youngest member.

What he considered his greatest failure wasn't near as bad as he originally thought. The boy was alive; being hunted by a newly discovered and deadly organization, but alive. Unfortunately, Batman's feelings for a boy he had never even met had distracted him from bestowing any attention to the teen that he had formed almost a father-son bond with.

When Batman turned back from his unsuccessful attempt at tracking the transmission signal, the Team was one member short and anxiety didn't waste any time in settling into Batman's stomach. The man only hesitated a second before taking off to Whisper's room, the other assembled heroes in his wake.

By the time the group arrived at the door, there was no sign of Whisper except for one of his computer gloves and his red music notebook, flipped to the last page. Superman floated forward and grabbed the notebook, leaving Batman a little angry that Superman was taking control when he was closer to Whisper. However, the Dark Knight's inner rantings were cut off when Whisper's holographic computer flew into his hands, having been tossed by the Big Blue Boy Scout himself. The latter probably knew that Batman wanted to search all the files it contained.

Looking away from Batman, the Kryptonian skimmed the writing in the notebook, face paling as he progressed, before looking up and gravely stating, "Assemble the League."

It was official. The Talons were jerks.

The fact that they wanted to meet Dick where he was kidnapped by them last time, right after his family died, was completely insensitive. To be fair, they were bloodthirsty and psychotic assassins with horrible fashion sense.

They were still jerks, though.

Dick slowed his motorcycle to a stop at the edge of the biggest field in Gotham, but in reality, it was barely inside the city limits. Popping down the kickstand, the teen slowly pulled off his helmet and slid from his seat. He didn't see anyone, but with the Talons, that meant about as much as if he was deaf and didn't hear anything in the vicinity. His theory was confirmed when several figures detached themselves from the woods at the other end of the field.

The adolescent placed his helmet on the bike seat and started forward, brushing his hand along his hip to be sure that he didn't have his utility belt with him. He had left it in the Cave's garage to make sure that the League of Jerks (that actually was a good name for them) wouldn't be able to get their hands on any of Batman's equipment.

Can anyone say Apocalypse-due-to-evildoers-using-Bruce's-stuff?

Taking a deep breath, Dick stepped to the middle of the space left by the semicircle that had been formed by the Talons. There were nine of them in sight and no doubt more were hiding in the trees. The youth put on what he hoped was a cocky smirk and laughed airily. Four of the assassins shifted uncomfortably while two others twitched almost imperceptibly. Stepping forward, Dick put both hands behind his back and made a show of looking around with his stunning blue eyes. He had removed his contacts on the ride over; there really wasn't a use for wearing them around the Talons.

"You know, I'm kind of disappointed Feliciano didn't come to collect me personally. Am I really that worthless to him?"

The Talons didn't answer, although several trembled at how he threw around their leader's name so casually, making Dick's eyes narrow. The League of Jerks was always up to something and no way they would've been here without a way to restrain him. Granted, to be taken captive was exactly the reason Dick was there, but that didn't mean he didn't want to be completely blind as to what was going on.

"Sooo, what happens now? We aren't just going to stand here all night, right? I mean I'm fine with it, but I doubt some of your new recruits could handle it. Assassin quality has gone down in the past yea-." Dick cut himself off and straightened, hands falling from behind his back. Did he just hear a stick break?

Too late, Dick realized that there was someone behind him, a tenth Talon. A sharp click was heard as a weight settled around his neck, making his eyes widen. Just as the teen turned, a high wiring noise was heard and electricity raised into his body. Dick screamed - who wouldn't? - and collapsed, wishing his vision would stop going in and out of focus. One arm was trapped awkwardly underneath his body, the other draped over his side, and his breaths were coming out in pained gasps. Gradually, his breathing slowed and became more shallow, black dots dancing along his vision.

Only a second later, Dick's head fell limply to the grass with a light groan, eyes rolled back in his head. He just hoped Bruce found the letter.

AN: Yep, I pulled a Slade! Don't worry though, this isn't going to go the same way as it did in TT... Mwahahahahaha...

Reasoning for the transmission code? Right here: b2r5dj2ts1d0b3ha

b2: Two Batmen (Bruce and Dick)

r5: Five Robins (Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, and Damian)

d: Dick

j2: Jason (lived twice)

t: Tim

s1: Stephanie ('died' but she really only lived once)

d0: Damian (0 because he's GONE! FOREVER! DAAAMMMMIIIIAAAAANNNNN! *gross sobbing*)

b3: Three Batgirls (Barbara, Cassandra, Stephanie)

h: Helena

a: Alfred (best for last)

-GSDLover