Ra's al Ghul was not happy.

Wonder Tower was gone, ruined. Though it had been an afterthought in his empire, the Eternal Man did not like losing what was rightfully his. The Joker had destroyed his base without malice or intent. He just did.

And now that lunatic was walking free on the streets.

The stench of Gotham's sewers offended his senses. That was where the Demon's Fang had retreated upon the destruction of Wonder Tower. Had it not been for the access to the tunnels being close to the Lazarus Pit, his entire Fang would have been consumed in the wreckage. As of now, he was at half-strength. Reinforcements would be needed from another Fang.

That would have to wait. A new headquarters was needed and Ra's admitted that his holdings in this city were not in adequate supply. He had some cells that were in operation, of course, but they had been small affairs in order to avoid detection by the Detective. His initial interactions with the man had proven he was sensitive to changes within the city. To maintain a low profile, small, four man teams had been placed in remote parts of the city. Because the teams were so small, they required fewer resources to be maintained, and could thus move around unobserved.

Wonder Tower had been the supply station to support these teams and with it gone, another place was required.

All around Ra's, he saw his men caring for their wounds and injuries, or performing maintenance on their weapons. The sewers were a poor place for medical attention and further examination would be needed in a cleaner, more sterile location. Ubu was standing nearby, constantly guarded the older man, as was expected of his station. Close by, Talia's child was nestled underneath a blanket, only managing a fitful rest.

Currently, Ra's could not say he was pleased with the boy. He had come to learn the child had approached the Joker and tried to bully him. It was because of this the Joker had broken free and managed his escape. Had it been any other under his command, Ra's would have ordered their execution. It was only by Talia's sway did that command die upon his tongue.

Speaking of whom, his daughter was not present. In order for the continuance of the child's life, he had assigned her the task of obtaining new accommodations. She had accepted the assignment without complaint.

Still, reparations would be made. The child needed to be educated in common sense. Considering his patronage, he had found that a surprising, if not disappointing finding. That Talia had not instilled this concept prior was even more upsetting.

It seemed such discipline fell to him.

There would be time for that in the near future. For now, obtaining new, more suitable accommodations was their most important need. He would bide his time and allow his forces to regroup. Undoubtedly, Bane would do the same, but he did not have access to an organization as vast as his. Numbers were on his side.

All who opposed him realized this just before he claimed their heads.

There was another tip that came in, one about another weapons dump located on Clinton Avenue. Gordon was not able to act on it himself when he had received the call. He was still in City Hall, close to Hady. The announcement of martial law had required his attendance along with some questions that had been lobbed at him by the press. Reporters had been foaming at the mouth upon the announcement and each one had managed to let their feelings be known through the questions they asked. To say the least, they weren't happy about it.

It was only after the end of the press conference did he get the call, and then he could only order that someone follow up on it. If this tip was as reliable as the last one, they were about to make another bust. Whoever this tipster was, they were doing some damn good work. It almost reminded him of...but that was not possible.

Even if he really wanted to believe it.

In the meantime, he needed to get a copy of the martial law decree for himself, something that his officers could wave in the faces of anybody who objected to it. He still didn't like this, but his hands were tied if he wanted to protect Gotham.

As they reached Hady's office, the Mayor quickly moving to get around his desk, the Commissioner commented, "Seems like we're in luck today. Got a tip that's going to need a raid."

"Martial law couldn't have come at a better time then," Hady replied as he reached for a pen. Laying proudly and in dead center of his desk was the multipage document that would finish up this thing and make it official. Though the announcement had been made, all that was needed was a single signature to make it real.

Hady scrawled his name on the line right above where it was printed, to make sure that no one could mistake that this was him putting it into effect.

And just like that, civil liberties were suspended.

"There it is, Gordon. You don't need a warrant for your raid. Go out there and do what you need to do," the Mayor announced as he picked up the flimsy pieces of paper and handed it to an aide.

"I'd like a copy of it just to be safe," Gordon said as he remained standing. He had an urge to stuff his hands into his pockets, but he resisted the temptation. He needed to remain professional even if his stomach was churning at it.

"Of course," Hady said dismissively as he picked up the phone receiver. He was dialing a number, one whose number Gordon would find out shortly.

"May I speak with the Governor? This is Sebastian Hady, the Mayor of Gotham."

The other part of the Commissioner's reason for being here: the call for the National Guard. With their authority increased and their ranks soon to be bolstered with military-trained men and women, there was going to be a big change who was winning this war.

Bane may have his trained mercenaries, but they were about to face soldiers, some of whom had seen combat overseas. These weren't the rank and file police officers they were used to dealing with. Naturally, it wouldn't just be the Guard themselves, but their equipment as well.

Gotham would be having armored vehicles on its streets. Tanks were one way to describe them, just without the turrets. Automatic weapons wouldn't stand a chance, though RPGs were still a threat. Gordon didn't put it above Bane to have such weapons with him.

"Governor? You heard the conference, did you? You can guess why I'm calling. I'm making a request for the National Guard," Hady began speaking into the phone, his call patched through.

This is what he had wanted, wasn't it? Now he was getting it. Time to push aside all doubts and get to business. There was a raid to plan and a tip to act on.

God help them all.

It was some time after lunch and Lucius Fox found himself in the lobby of Wayne Enterprises. He had just returned himself having grabbed something greasy to sink his teeth in. At his age, he needed to watch his diet, but everyone needed to treat themselves every once in a while. It was what made life worth living.

It was in the lobby when he heard his name called.

"Mr. Lucius Fox!"

It was loud, attention getting, and as he turn in the direction he had heard that voice, he found it belonged to a person who he would describe as an attention-getter.

Though dressed professionally in a blouse and pants, none of that did anything to take away from the beauty of this woman. Dark hair was styled to hide her left eye, though he saw hints of it peeking through it from time to time. Some very luscious lips were painted red with lipstick and that was the extent of the noticeable makeup she wore.

Naturally, the businessman was curious why such a very attractive woman like this was calling out to him. He had a feeling he knew why, because what other reason would there be for anyone to want his attention.

"That's a set of lungs you have. To what do I owe this pleasure…?" he trailed off.

"Forgive me, but I didn't want to lose sight of you now that I have found you," the woman said, her accent one he was unable to put his finger on, but for some reason it seemed to fit her. In fact, a person like this would demand to have an accent of some kind that fit them best. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Talia Head, of the Head Development Corporation. There are some matters that I need to discuss with you and only you."

He was not familiar with such a company, but he kept quiet about it. Instead, he told her, "Normally I require people to schedule an appointment with me if they need to discuss anything with me. This is very short notice, Ms. Head."

"My apologies, but I recently arrived in Gotham and came across a problem that I had not anticipated. I had heard when such problems arise, you are the man in this city to meet with. In fact, I had just arrived to make an appointment when I spotted you. I hope you don't mind if I take the initiative to speed the process up," Head explained. "Bruce always mentioned that if anyone wanted something done in this city, you were the man to speak to."

Lucius raised both of his eyebrows. "You know Bruce? As in Bruce Wayne?"

"That was indeed the name he gave me. Also, he was identical to the pictures when I had a background check done on him," Head answered, shrugging her shoulders apologetically. "This was some years back, mind you, but it was serendipitous nonetheless."

Interesting words there, he noted. He was going to need to feel her out some more—metaphorically, of course—before he committed to any kind of dealing with her, or her company.

"It's your luck that I have nothing scheduled right now. We may not have much time, but I could squeeze you in and hear what you have to say. Shall we go to my office?" he invited, gesturing towards the elevators.

"Most certainly," Head agreed.

Several minutes later, and several floor higher, Lucius was shutting the door behind them while Head accepted one of the chairs he had offered. As he moved to reach his seat behind his desk, he asked, "If you don't mind, could you tell me how you know Bruce? A lot of stories come in through here, as well as other offices, of how this person knows Mr. Wayne, or how they helped him change a tire and was promised a job, when really they happened to walk past him when they happened to be eating at the same restaurant."

"Your concern is warranted," Head chuckled, amused as his explanation. "As I mentioned, this was some years back. I was in the middle of a vacation in the Swiss Alps when I first met him. We were at a ski resort and it was very odd that he was the one person that wasn't skiing. At first I had believed he was waiting on his group to finish getting ready and had not paid him much mind. A few days later, I grew curious and introduced myself."

For a man like Bruce Wayne, the Swiss Alps were a generic location. Still, it was reasonable to believe he had been there at least once, if not several times in the last few years. Personally, Lucius could name a few specific times he knew Bruce to be vacationing in those mountains.

"Only when I was paying close attention did I notice the signs of grief," Head continued. "They are ones I know too well. This man had lost family, I had thought to myself, or perhaps someone he was close to. I took a gamble and introduced myself to him, and he made perhaps the worst attempt at flirting that I had ever seen. His heart wasn't in it and that helped confirmed my suspicions.

"We spent a lot of time with one another after that, learning about one another. At the end of it, I would have to say we had become friends, of a kind. However, he never divulged much information about himself, I noticed. He likes to keep secrets and other people at arm's length. There was one time he slipped a name, Alfred, I believe it was."

That would put the time sometime after the Great Gotham Fire and Bruce's leave of absence afterwards. Not only that, one of the first destinations in Bruce's itinerary, before he had dropped off altogether, had been in Zurich. This was starting to check out from a surface level.

"So far I haven't heard anything that doesn't check out. So what can I do for you, Ms. Head?" he asked.

"Please, call me Talia. The formalities remind me too much of my mother," Talia told him. "Why I come here today is that I am searching for properties in the city where I can establish a regional headquarters for Head Development. I have checked many locations, most of which were not fit for our enterprise."

"So how does that bring you here to Wayne Enterprises?" Lucius asked. Now they were getting into the heart of the matter.

"I was unable to not notice that there are some prime locations in this city that would more than serve my company, and they all happened to be owned by Wayne Enterprises," Talia explained, crossing her legs as she spoke. "I wish to purchase one of them, specifically one that is close to Gotham's Industrial sector. The location is ideal and would allow us space to store some of our larger equipment."

"Hold on for a moment, allow me to look up the property in question," he told her, turning to his computer and rapidly tapping on the keyboard. It didn't take long and he found the location that Talia spoke of. Interesting enough, this was a place where there wasn't much activity. In fact, they were in the process of relocating many of its functions elsewhere to other locations. Something told him that Talia here was probably aware of this also.

"I do believe I found the place you're looking at," he remarked. "As of right now, we're in the process of relocation, meaning we're emptying it out. Are you proposing to me that you want to buy it for your company?"

"Precisely," Talia confirmed. "I am very good at doing my homework, Mr. Fox."

Another interesting choice of words there, but he was not going to call her out on it. Instead, he said, "I think we can get something worked out. I'll run this by some of the board members today and see if I can't get them to agree to a sell. I don't foresee it being too much of a problem, so long as you can afford whatever price we ask."

"Money has never been an issue for us. If this could be finalized today, I would more than appreciate it," Talia thanked him. "The sooner this transaction can take place, the better."

"You got it." This was going quite well and whether Talia knew it or not, she was helping in certain matters that he would not go in to right now. It was very sensitive right now, but now that he thought about it…

"Before you leave, Ms. Head, there is something else I would like to speak with you about," he said. "It's a proposition, nothing more, and it is not anything that would get you into trouble. I bring it up because you mentioned how close you are, or were to Mr. Wayne. I hope you still are."

Talia raised an eyebrow. "What does this proposition entail?"

Helena stared at her mask, her dark hair framing her face in a wild cascade.

It seemed as if she were living with this thing on, that Huntress had taken over completely. That wasn't to say her alter-ego wasn't a large part of her because it was. One would be hard-pressed to find where Helena ended and Huntress began.

This mask, however, allowed a darker, angrier part of her loose and that was exhilarating. However, day after day of this wore her down.

She was tired and stressed and frustrated and...and...and…

Helena sighed while looking away from her purple mask. Since she was holding it in her hand, she lowered it to her side, where it was firmly out of sight.

Though that Red Hood kid was impetuous, he wasn't wrong. She knew it and the rest of them knew that the endgame here was taking out Bane. He was the problem and they had to be the solution.

The problem was that Bane wasn't some two-bit thug. He wasn't some power-mad shrink with delusions of grandeur. They had fought him on neutral ground and he had creamed them. He hadn't even bothered killing them with his own hands, opting for his mercenaries to finish them off. Were this the days of the Mob and Falcone and Maroni, that would've been considered a high insult. In fact, her family roots were shrieking from being tossed aside and seen as nothing more than garbage.

Unfortunately, they hadn't made that much progress since that night. It seemed as if they were stuck in neutral, avoiding directly fighting Bane in favor of squashing down the smaller fishes. They had taken on Mario Falcone high on the Monster Man serum and that had been rough. They took on Hugo Strange and his improved formula and that had been even rougher. Now they were honing in on the Phantasm, a guy she hadn't missed since their initial run-in and that hadn't been a picnic back then.

See what she meant by small fries?

And now the situation with martial law was just another complication they didn't need. There were enough factions in this city fighting over it and she, the Network, didn't need the cops against them too. Where Hady had gotten the idea, she didn't know, but it was pouring gasoline on a bonfire. Nothing good was going to come from this.

However, there were other problems that she hadn't foreseen. See, the idea for the Network was a good one in light of what was going on. The good guys needed to unite instead of fighting isolated battles across the city. They needed to help each other and coordinate their activities.

This ended up bringing together a group of people with various skills, experiences, and egos. Each one had a way of doing things, even if it were in group settings. Bluebird and Spoiler took their cues from Nightwing, even kowtowing to the veterans of the group. While that was professional and respectable, it limited their involvement to being sidelines for the most part.

Red Hood, the newest addition of the Batclan, was completely different. He was green, anyone could see that. He had little experience in a team setting, so he was chafing at the structures necessary to keep a team together. The larger the group, the more voices there were, and the more emphasis there was on group agreement. Perhaps that was a limiting factor in what they were all used to doing.

Still, Red Hood could only see the forest for the trees. There were a hundred steps they had to take in order to save Gotham and he was looking at step ninety six and they were at step twelve. There was also his own ego that no doubt had been bruised lately and thus he was over-compensating. If he had more skill, perhaps he could be more useful than his old tactic of hitting something hard only to find out he was punching a brick wall.

He needed more training, that much was obvious. That needed to be rectified sooner rather than later. There wasn't really any excuse considering the number of fighters they had. Perhaps she needed to talk to Nightwing of getting all of the younger vigilantes a little more variety in their training.

Helena found herself looking to her mask again, her hand absently raising it into sight once more. She couldn't help but think about the last night or so following the declaration of martial law, not to mention the museum fight. The Network had scoured the city for Bane's Venom stashes, coming up empty handed. She knew they were out there, hidden within the city. Unfortunately, Bane had been thorough and the stashes were too well hidden for them to find.

She felt her frustration returning. It had cooled off for a moment while she had been been thinking of the Batclan, but now it was back in full force. How did a man who barely knew the area keep his resources so well hidden? They had home field advantage for crying out loud! They should have found something, be it the Venom, a weapon's dump, something.

Which was another thing. How the heck was the GCPD finding these dumps? They didn't have a glowing reputation for being competent. One just had to look at the resident vigilante presence to understand that. Yet, they were doing more damage to Bane's operation than they were.

So naturally, that was when the sound of a phone ringing broke her concentration. Growling, Helena stuck a hand into one of her belt pouches, yanking out her cell phone. She stared at the caller ID until she recognized the name on the screen. Quickly, she answered it. "What do you want?"

"Nice greeting," Dinah answered her, humor in her voice. "I take it this is a bad time to bum a ride."

Helena raised an eyebrow. "A ride from where? Aren't you supposed to be enjoying your time in the Keys or something?"

"Been there, done that. Red Robin and I just landed at the tarmac at Gotham International."

"So why don't you call your boy toy? I'm sure he has a few cars sitting around collecting dust."

"I would have, but your name was the first one I found in my contact list."

Lazy bitch. "I'll go let Arrow know you need to bum a ride, alright? And next time you want to bother someone about getting picked up, just put his name at the top of your contact list."

"Now why would I do that when I have you to get things done for me?"

As good as it was to have Canary back, Helena could have done without the snarkiness. Though she was a professional to a T, Dinah had a sarcastic side to her that came out when she wanted nothing more than to annoy the dark-haired woman. "This is me hanging up," she responded before she ended the call. Sighing, she put her phone back in her belt and then placed her mask back onto her face.

It was time to get back into the saddle.

To FlackAttack: Ra's has always viewed Bruce favorably. It's why he is the only person Ra's has ever extended multiple offers to. You are on the right track that the Lazarus Pit and Restoration Pool did return his body to a more youthful age. Now mentally is a different matter.