"I need to locate where the bullet entered the court and where it impacted. Batgirl, detective mode please." muttered Nightwing, trying-and failing to cover up the blow to his ego by getting down to business.
"Detective mode activated." replied Batgirl coolly. The members of the team couldn't help but be impressed when Nightwing's mask's field of vision turned blue from the feedback from the scanners now activated.
"The bullet hit the floor here, now where did it enter the room?" questioned Nightwing zooming into a section of the floor with a bullet hole in it. Nightwing walked over to the window the bullet came through and scanned it for holes he found one and an orange line appeared leading from the hole in the window to the one on the floor. "The trajectory the bullet traveled will lead me to the shooter." "The church? I thought those were supposed to be places of peace." joked Nightwing.
"You do know your jokes are as bad as your puns, right?" Batgirl dead panned.
"Right, right. I'm going." Nightwing said hurriedly. He fired his grappling gun and started flipping, grappling, running, and beating up any thug he came across on the way to the church and easily dispatching the thugs with their faces painted guarding the entrance. He opened both sets of double doors in the church to a crowd of more thugs.
"Coming through, Batbrat!" was cheerily yelled at him, courtesy of Harley Quinn who executed a flawless triple round off and attempted to hit Nightwing, only to be punched in the stomach so hard she was sent flying back.
"Ow!" she screeched.
"Let the lady go Bird freak, or these people all get a bullet in their heads!" said a thug quickly after seeing his (temporary) leader get knocked over so fast.
"I think you should listen to what he says, after all I'd hate to get blood all over my nice new outfit. What do you think, Batbrat like it? Of course you do who wouldn't?" she crowed happily brushing off the red and black revealing costume with diamond decals and a corset to add. "See here's the deal, Mistah J really is not up for a visit right now, he's not feeling himself." she elaborated while circling Nightwing. "Well actually, he was earlier, but that's not what I meant. He's not doing so well and that idiot doctor I sent from here didn't help!" She said this with such fury, that the senior team members watching these events play out would be glad they were not on the receiving end of that (misguided) anger, but they had heard stories from the bats about her abilities and were not impressed. The younger team members were very concerned for Nightwing. Batgirl and Robin just rolled their eyes at Harley's usual love struck attitude about someone hurting her Mistah J. "I've seen more smarts from these bozos!" she added in a 'Can you believe it?' tone. "I've got to run boys," she said turning to her thugs. "if he does anything funny, kill him!" she added yelling while pointing a finger gun at her head before blowing him a kiss and striding out of the church. Nightwing immediately threw some gas pellets to the ground and grappled on to the nearest gargoyle in the ensuing chaos from the thugs yells and wild shots. He then swiftly swung over to the nearest gargoyle and quickly made his way to the back of the church's lobby where he dropped down and took out two unsuspecting thugs by bashing there heads together. "You're safe, stay quiet." he ordered a hostage before grappling over to another room, bursting through a wall, and taking out another terrified thug.
"Stay back bird brain I have a gun!" was the last thing a thug was able to utter before he was knocked out. The same procedure was repeated until all the captors in the room were unconscious.
"Okay does everyone understand? Look after the wounded keep the bad guys out. Were a team let's keep it that way." stated a security guard who appeared to be in charge. He turned to see Nightwing running towards him. "Thank god you got here." he praised Nightwing.
"After what happened at the Asylum, I'd think you'd want to settle for a quiet desk job." Nightwing said wryly.
"Yeah right, when Sharp closed the old asylum down, it turned out there wasn't much jobs for an ex-security guard who failed to stop a mass breakout. This is the only work I can get."
"Batman's told you this, and I'll tell you this too. What happened back there wasn't your fault, Cash. It's the truth." sighed Nightwing. "What was Harley Quinn doing here?"
"That crazy," (This time M'Gann was able to cover up Beast Boy's ears in time, but he still got the gist of what Cash was saying) "bitch busted in a couple hours ago with the rest of these idiots. Took something up the tower than blew up the staircase."
"Thanks, I'll check it out."
"Wait! I mean sorry, Nightwing I forgot a couple of them grabbed one of the 'docs. Quinn said something about needing her to fix up the Joker."
"Don't worry, I'll find her. Harley and the Joker aren't the most subtle, they leave that to Riddler, Catwoman and occasionally Zsasz. You concentrate on securing this church. It should keep you all safe."
"Will do, hope you find the doc, her name's Stacy Baker. She's one of the good ones."
"Okay, we saw Catwoman, hottie by the way, and we fight Riddler all the time, but whose Zsasz?" inquired Impulse asking the new question on everyones' minds.
Batgirl left Robin to monitor the feed from Nightwing's mask and pulled up a holographic picture and profile of Zsasz. "Victor Zsasz alias Zsasz is an insane serial killer who believes that the only way to save the human race from a zombie apocalypse is by killing all possible would be zombie victims. For every victim he kills, he adds a tally mark to his skin to keep track. Besides displaying insane and sociopathic tendencies, Zsasz is unpredictable, unstable, and will kill you first chance he gets, he never holds ransoms for his victims. He is serving out multiple life sentences with no chance of parole and has 114 cases of man slaughter proven against him and at least 58 unproven or pending cases where he is the main suspect. Furthermore,-" Batgirl's gruesome speech to everyone but Robin was interrupted by the church's bell tower blowing up.
"What happened!" screeched Batgirl to Robin.
"Uh, Nightwing kind of blew up the tower." replied Robin sheepishly.
Bumble Bee turned to Batgirl. "Dang girl, keep screeching like that and I really will think you are part bat!" Batgirl blushed while looking back at the screen.
"Nightwing to Robin I've located the signal used to control the gun. Joker's behind this. Bats won't be happy about this."
"Yeah, I barely heard the clown over Batgirl lecturing the team about Zsasz. And you mean if." he corrected Nightwing. "Bats is off world on a mission and logged off of communications." Robin added for good measure.
"Agent A is updating me on everything you're saying and what's going on." Came Batman's gruff voice across the comm link.
"I'll leave you to your lecture then." laughed Nightwing as he grappled to the coordinates of the signal to the sniper rifle in the bell tower of the church.
"Lantern, look out!" yelled Batman. "You're lucky we're being attacked by flesh eating space aliens." he added. "Don't think you won't be getting the never think Batman isn't listening to your conversations lecture. Batman out."
"The radio signal should lead me right to-" Nightwing was cut off by Harley Quinn.
"Listen up dumb asses, and listen carefully, as you know, Mistah J is... he's... not feeling himself. And the last thing he needs is any so called heroes bursting in here and stopping his so called recuperation! That's where you morons come in. You need to protect the Steel Mill. Protect it with your lives! Because if you fail, I'll make sure the visits of your life don't mean zip! Get it? Good!"
"-him. Well, that just made my job a little harder. Robin do you know any alternate routes?"
Batgirl cut off Robin's response. "I'm going to warn you 'Wing, the only accessible route to the inside of the mill is suicide, but-"
"Through the main chimney, I figured." Nightwing cut her off before grappling in. He then proceeded to navigate his way through several hundred yards of metal piping, air vents and jets of steam with the aid of his grappling hook and his skills. Nightwing was sneaking down a lower walkway when he passed an arena of convicts, Harley Quinn, and the missing doctor.
"I promised you some entertainment, didn't I boys?" Harley practically snarled. Nightwing started to pick up the pace.
"Please, I tried my best." begged Dr. Baker.
"Well, then you should have tried harder." was yelled back at her by a certain love crazed clown. The doctor's resounding screams were heard mixed in with the inmates cheers. "That useless quack has failed Mistah J and you know what that means." Harley was met by chants of "Kill, Kill, Kill!" Nightwing was definitely picking up the pace now.
"Oh, I think we can do better than that!" The resounding sound of metal smacking meat and the doctor's agonized screams made most of the team feel sick.
"Señorita, you live in a loco city." was all Blue Beetle had to say to Batgirl.
"Tell me about it."
"Heeeeelllllllpppppp me!" was heard from the arena as well as, the banging of metal on metal.
"Stop! Change of plans! Take her to the smelting chamber. Mistah J wants this one to suffer a little bit longer!" laughed Harley in delight.
"You're coming with us 'doc." was stated by a distinctly male voice.
"That's it the rest of you idiots get out of here! You know what to do go get the snow man and bring him back here right now! He's gonna pay for screwing over Mistah J I needed him back here like yesterday!" she demanded as groups of thugs left the building. Nightwing then jumped up and made quick work of the thugs.
He then turned to an incredibly painful to look at neon likeness of the Joker with two doors in its jaws. A very angry Harley Quinn came striding out. "What the hell are you doing here, you're supposed to be dead! Well, there's no way you're getting to Mistah J, were safe and sound up here. You can just stay down there and burn!" On that pleasant note, the doors sealed shut in front of Harley.
"Nightwing to Robin, Joker's goons dragged off a Dr. I'm going to get her back first."
"Okay."
Nightwing then ran up and down halls and around numerous corners before he got to a room of thugs going on about killing him and Batman and about their secret crushes on Harley. Nightwing didn't pay much attention to what they had to say. He quickly dispatched them with relative ease and proceeded on to the next room to hear the goons talking to there hostage.
"This was supposed to be your last chance to make things good. Harley says if you can't fix the boss we gotta hurt you. Bad." The thug almost sounded sad about hurting the doctor and it made the team (mostly the girls besides Artemis and Batgirl who both lived in Gotham) think there was hope for him. Nightwing grappled up onto a gargoyle and dropped down onto a patrolling thug, knocked him out, crashed through a window, and saved the doctor within thirty seconds. The Team was once again impressed.
"How do you think poor Mistah J is gonna get better if you fail to stop the dumb bird!" screeched Harley over the intercom as Nightwing walked over and untied the doctor.
"Can you stand?" he asked.
"Give me a second. What's wrong with these people? That crazy woman thinks I can fix the Jokah." she quivered out.
"What's wrong with him?"
"There's something in his blood,some kind of toxin, it's killing him. He blames something called...Titan."
"The plot thickens." interrupted Batgirl completely unconcerned for the Joker.
"Titan?" Nightwing's face was shadowed with worry.
"Yeah, do you know what he's talking about? He kept going on about last laugh."
"Ah-ah, 'doc isn't that information supposed to be...confidential. Interrupted Harley's voice from the intercom on a mannequin in front of them.
"What's happening, how does she know what were saying?" fretted the panicked doctor.
"Get that door sealed up nice and tight boys, we don't want that vermin escaping do we?" trilled Harley over the intercom.
"At least they won't be getting in. We're safe, right?" Nightwing chose to ignore that question and turned around to the voltage measuring station and started to rip it apart.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Sorry doc, I need to get out of here someone needs to stop Joker." he said putting together a new device. "Stay here you'll be safe."
"You're sure?"
"If you hear anyone coming, hide. I'll be back." Nightwing replied over his shoulder continuing on to leave a trail of unconscious thugs in his wake. His new device, which temporarily gave remote electric charges to turned off machines, his hacking skills, and his martial arts experience all came in handy. During that time, Hugo Strange's voice came on the intercom to inform everyone currently on the line that 'Protocol 10 will commence in nine hours.'
He approached another room that Harley was in. It had another painful neon Joker face around the door."How did you get out of the smelting chamber Batbrat? What did you make? Tell me! Tell me!" she demanded. Too slow, bird brain!" she added when tried to grapple onto the ledge she was on and failed as she closed the door. "Harley, get back here, I think I'm dying!" was heard from behind the door. He then used the new gadget he had and used an electrical current to build up enough momentum for a crane to smash into the doors and knock the surrounding Joker face off too.
"What's wrong with you Batbrat, you come to Mistah J's home and start smashing things! Don't you know he's sick!" Harley yelled outraged. When Nightwing promptly tried to grapple up, he was knocked down by a giant one armed man. "Surprise Batbrat, meet Mr. Hammer, he's gonna teach you some manners!" she added for good measure.
"Woooaaahhhh, that's a big hammer! Who is that guy?" Wondergirl thought aloud. Batgirl pulled up another villain profile "Mr. Abramovici (first name unknown) alias Mr. Hammer he had a russian twin Mr. Sickle who also worked for a russian circus as freaks and then the Joker. All their lives until a few months ago, they have been conjoined at their torsos until they were forcibly split in half by the Joker. The Joker chose Mr. Hammer over Mr. Sickle as one of his enforcers. Mr. Sickle has currently been spotted with the Penguin's gang, though no physical evidence has been uncovered of Mr. Sickle being part of the gang. Both have brutal mind sets and are responsible for 43 murders together and 16 and two separately respectively. They are each serving life sentences with a chance of parole.
While Batgirl had explained who Mr. Hammer was, Nightwing had defeated said villain and a group of thugs. He was about to grapple up to the ledge when he heard Harley utter "No!" and a sound he was all to familiar to him. A flat line from a heart monitor. Harley was crouched at the Joker's feet crying. The Joker was sitting in a wheel chair and the monitor connected to him was flatlining. "Batgirl and Robin, you getting this?" asked Nightwing.
"Loud and clear, 'Wing." answered Robin.
"I can't believe he's really dead." said Batgirl.
"Fifty bucks he's not." challenged Robin. Batgirl was about to answer when the comm crackled to life.
"Robin, rule thirty seven."
"I know Batman, no betting on the job."
"Then follow the rule, Batman out."
"Why, why, why, why, why." sobbed Harley. She turned towards Nightwing when she heard his footsteps. "You!" she snarled.
"Move, Quinn." was his only reply. When didn't do the required action, he grabbed her arm and shoved her to the side.
"Hu-ooh! This all your fault! You and B-man," she ranted as he used detective vision to search for signs of life. When he was satisfied that there was no breathing, pulse, or even a struggling heart beat he turned it off in time to catch the end of Harley's rant. "-not to mention that new bird idiot and Bratgirl have hounded him for years, beat him to a pulp and for what?" she said staring at him with tear filled eyes as she slowly backed away from him, but there was something else in those eyes that looked like glee. She looked like the fox that was about to snap up dinner. Then he was jumped from behind.
"Surprise!" screamed the Joker in his ear. While he breathed in a sweet scent the Joker was pressing to his nose. Sweet scent...Chloroform! Nightwing threw the Joker off, but it was too late. The chloroform had left him disoriented, so when Harley went "Batter up!" and started hitting him with a baseball bat and as his world faded to black, he couldn't help but think Three strikes you're out.