To draw out a wolf, one needed sheep as bait. Shiva had requested such bait and Ra's al Ghul had not disappointed.

Of course, these sheep were highly-trained and lethal. These were not men expected to be slaughtered. So she used them accordingly.

There was a small congregation of Bane's men taking refuge at a basketball court. It was a rendezvous point for them, one the Demon's Fang had been keeping tabs on. This was a perfect locale to draw out her quarry, a wide open expanse to reveal the assassins as they took on the mercenaries. While she expected this serial killer, this Zsasz, to stay in the shadows and strike just as they were leaving, she at least had the benefit of shrinking Bane's forces further.

Walking down the sidewalk casually, arms swaying at her sides, Shiva stepped onto the cement court, gazing at the rough-looking men. One took notice of her, which drew the attention of the other men shortly after.

"Hey, chica," one of them wolf-whistled her. "What brings a sweet thing like you here?"

Shiva just smiled at them, drawing them closer to her. Like the hot-blooded men they were, they began to approach her, forming a semi-circle around her. "What brings me here?" she asked them coyly.

She eyed one of the men, a familiar, lustful look on his face. Why was it all men took on this look? It was leering and rather unpleasant to look at. Still, it provided her with an opportunity. Stepping to this men, her welcoming expression still on her face, she then leaned to him as she softly whispered, "Your blood."

Fast as lightning, she shot a hand up, her last two fingers curled into her palm as her first two and thumb form a talon-like formation. Her strike hit the man against his throat, her fingers digging into his larynx. As fast as she struck, she pulled back, ripping the larynx out as blood sprayed over her.

"Gaahhhahyyaahhh!" the mercenary gargled as his hands gripped at his throat, dropping to his knees, then collapsed to the ground. There was a gasp from the other men as they all jumped backwards, whipping out their firearms as they took aim at her.

"Fry this bitch!" one of them roared.

That was when metal struck against metal, flying ninja stars colliding with the guns and knocking them out of the mercenaries' hands. Their cries of pain and surprise were a sweet melody to her ears.

That was when the assassins came rushing in, appearing almost as if from nowhere. Brandishing swords, they came in slicing, cutting up three of the mercenaries in the first wave. Blood sprayed through the air as men screamed.

By then, the remaining mercenaries had drawn out their secondary weapons, knives and handguns. Immediately, the pistols fired, striking two of the assassins, dropping them to the ground. Another mercenary threw himself at an assassin, knife in hand, only to impale himself on a sword. However, he did not go down alone as he drove his knife into the assassin's eye, the two men falling to the ground with the dying mercenary landing on top of the screaming assassin.

Darting her eyes to one of the gun-wielding mercenaries, Shiva saw the man had turned his weapon towards her. Seeing the barrel, Shiva glided to a side just as the gun fired, the bullet flying by her harmlessly. She then swayed in the opposite direction as the mercenary jerked his gun to point at her again, once more firing a shot that missed her.

That was all the shots he had time for. Having closed the distance between them, Shiva shot a hand up, her palm striking the bottom of the gun and forcing it upward. Another bullet was fired, but it sailed high into the air.

Shiva's right foot slid across the concrete, the dragging of dirt grains roughly scraping the cement court. Her body turned so that her profile faced the man and as one fluid moment, she thrust a palm strike with her right hand. Her palm collided with the man's nose, crushing it, and forcing the cartilage up into the mercenary's brain. Blood exploded out of his nostrils, gushing like geysers as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he dropped into a heap on the ground.

A war cry sounded off and Shiva lazily turned her head to see a knife-holding mercenary charging at her, knife held in a reverse grip up in the air and threatening to stab her with a downward motion.

Patiently, Shiva waited for the stab, which came. However, the knife never touched her. It stopped perhaps an inch or two away, mostly because she had moved her hand to catch it. Her palm was pressed up against the side of the cold steel, her fingers wrapping around the back of the knife, creating her hold.

Holding her arm up like that, she coolly watched the man pause, then drew his free hand back, throwing a punch at her face. Moving her head to her left and subsequently raising the knife—and the man's arm—upward, she dodged the fist as it sailed over her shoulder and right by her head.

That's when she struck. Thrusting a palm strike upward, her palm hit just above the elbow of the mercenary's knife-wielding arm, forcing it to hyper-extend. The force she had hit the arm proved to be too much for it to withstand as the bone immediately snapped, a jagged piece ripping through flesh, muscle, and cloth. She could see the broken bone pointing up out of the arm as fresh blood began pouring out of the wound.

The mercenary screamed as his fingers spasmed, releasing his knife, giving her sole possession of it. Extending her knife-holding hand out and away, she flipped the weapon with practiced ease until she fingers wrapped around the knife's hilt. Pushing the broken arm further upward, Shiva then stepped towards her foe and drove the knife into his armpit.

The man's screams came to a choked end even as she quickly drew the knife out of his body. Feet sliding across the cement ground, she spun around the man until her back faced his. Drawing the knife up in front of her face, she once more flipped the knife in her grasp until she held it in a reverse grip. Then she swung her arm out and to her side, driving the knife into the back of the man's neck, severing the spinal cord, and the corpse dropped to the ground.

Letting go of the knife's hilt, she then turned around to face the rest of the battle. As expected, Ra's assassins were fighting with all of their might against the mercenaries, though there were casualties on both sides.

That's when she saw it. There was a flash of skin and metal and an assassin went stiff before he fell to the ground. Due to the fighting, Shiva could not see the source, so she sidestepped, moving until she saw between two struggling mercenaries as they each held off an assassin.

As had been described to her, a bald man stood there, his body riddled with scores of tally marks. Even now, the man was cutting another one into his flesh, a look of bliss on his face.

It would seem the wolf had emerged to collect her sheep.

You could've heard the sound of a pin drop. Dick hadn't given much thought to what that meant, but he knew what it meant now.

The Network, the rest of them, sat in sheer silence. Harper and Stephanie were in shock, unable to process what they had just heard. Green Arrow had his head bowed, a sign of respect for the lost and grieving. Huntress had her face buried in one of her hands, so it was hard to tell what she looked like. Katana was staring into space, the same with Black Canary. Manhunter was visibly upset and didn't seem sure how she should be reacting.

There was no point in looking at Tim. He already had time to process what had happened to Jason, even seeing his body. This was for the others.

"Damn that clown," Huntress said, earning herself the attention of the room. "It's always him, isn't it? No matter what we do, no matter what we build, he always has to come around and destroy it." She suddenly slapped her hand down on the table, revealing the fury on her face while causing Harper and Stephanie to flinch from the sudden bang. "Not this time. We need to hunt that son of a bitch down tonight."

"Agreed," Manhunter agreed.

"You're talking about the Joker here," Tim...Red Robin interjected. "This isn't Hugo Strange or Two-Face; this is the guy that's blown Gotham up multiple times."

"Your point?" Huntress snapped. "He's hurt us in the most terrible way possible. You can't possibly say we should let him get away with that."

"No, not at all. We just need to be careful is all."

"What does it matter?" Nightwing spoke up, silencing the conversation. His voice was raspy, though he wasn't sure as to how that was. It wasn't like he had been crying his eyes out, or anything like that. It didn't make sense really, but that was just the way it was. "Any of this, I mean. We've been fighting for so long against the worst Gotham has and look at what happened. Jason's dead." He looked down to his hands, which were stained with the boy's dried blood. "He's dead and we all played a part in it. We...I...I shouldn't have allowed him to wear a mask, or given him training, or let him leave the fucking bunker when he did. This...this…"

It was as if whatever anger Huntress had muster drained out of her, leaving only a subdued woman in her place. "That may have been best, but it's too late to change it now," she murmured.

"There's a lot of coulda-wouldas here," Green Arrow spoke then, raising his head for the first time in awhile. "And this hurts—alot. But...Jason...he wanted to help this city and it would be a failure on our part to let what happened to him freeze us in place. We need to press on because that is what he'd want."

Press on, huh? That was easy for him to say, he didn't get a kid killed. The entire time Dick had spent with Jason flashed before his eyes and he could easily pinpoint any number of times he could've ended the kid's training. Instead he allowed him to flounder about until he ran headfirst into the worst psychopath he could find. He should have shut him down the moment he had found Stephanie's costume. He should have beaten him back and blue until he couldn't move for days, if not weeks later so that he would lose interest. He should've called his bluff and had Oracle set up a scenario that disproved his claim at every turn. Goddamn it, why did he not do any of this?!

"What do you propose then, Arrow?" Huntress questioned. "This isn't something you just set on the back-burner and forget about."

"Well, the bridges getting blown up would be a good start," he suggested.

As if they didn't have enough on their plate already. Out of the blue, every single bridge connecting Gotham to the outside world had been blown to pieces. There was no way in or out of the city, which left them with a rather large problem.

They were facing at least two different factions vying for control of Gotham and any outside help was effectively no longer an option. Throw in a few million panicked Gothamites and you had a powder keg ready to blow.

And now there was Jason…

"It's not like we were getting any help to begin with," Huntress responded, pulling Nightwing out of his dark thoughts. "You're the only one that's come, so as far as us getting additional help, yeah, that wasn't going to happen. Now, us getting supplies will be a problem. We're effectively running with what we have left on the ground."

"Which isn't much to begin with," Manhunter added. "We were already down a few of our weapons. I haven't gotten a replacement staff and Katana's sword is one nasty bend away from being broken. Then there's all the throwing stars and grapple lines and other knickknacks we use on a nightly basis. And I'm not even including Green Arrow's arrows, or the trick ones he uses."

"We'll just have to come up with a new supply line," Black Canary spoke then. "If there's anyone that can, it's Oracle."

"Thanks for your vote of confidence," Barbara responded. "I'm looking into a few options, but unfortunately it'll take some time."

"I wonder," Bluebird said then. "Why did the bridges blow? I mean, who did it and why? It doesn't really make any sense."

That was actually a good question and one Barbara hadn't gotten them an answer for just yet. Dick had been doing his best to not speculate as to the exact reason because there were just too many to choose from. Bane could have done it, but he didn't see the reason why. It didn't make sense for him to do it since he needed supplies and men just like they did. Ra's al Ghul, on the other hand, was fully capable of it if only to starve Bane out, but if his claim of wanting to protect Gotham was true, then destroying the infrastructure was counter-intuitive. He doubted the Phantasm had the needed firepower, not to mention his motivation was to kill a selected target.

However, if there was someone that it made sense for, it was the Joker. Murder and mayhem were right up his alley and the bridges were right out of his playbook. If he was a betting man, that's where he'd put his money on.

"That's something we're going to have to find out," Red Robin eventually said, answering Bluebird's question. "It's too early to make assumptions at this point, not without proof. That's at least something Batman would do."

"If there was ever a time we needed him, it's this," Nightwing mumbled out.

There was a quiet moment before Manhunter cleared her throat. She sounded uncomfortable and that struck Nightwing's curiosity.

"I'm probably not the best person to bring this up," she began, sounding them out. "But all this time, we've kept asking ourselves what would Batman do, how he would handle this situation and all. It's got me thinking and maybe I'm not the only one who has, but what if we bring up a new Batman?"

There was dead silence at that before Red Robin questioned, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, there's been all of these people putting on Batman costumes. Hugo Strange did it. The Joker apparently is too. They're obviously trying to do something with Batman's cowl, so why aren't we? Why hasn't one of us put on the cowl?"

"Because none of us are Batman," Huntress immediately interjected.

"You're right that none of us can be him, but you can't deny the power of his symbol," Manhunter quickly amended. "The bad guys have already realized this. Maybe we need to too."

"I won't hear it. No one is putting on that damn cowl," the purple-clad woman growled lowly.

"She does raise a point," Katana softly pointed out.

A sickening feeling was welling up within Nightwing as he heard those words. Replace Batman? Should they? Manhunter was right that everyone else had been invoking the Bat Symbol—all but them. The impact was felt every single time it became so much as a whisper.

So why did he feel sick just considering this idea?

One look at Huntress told anyone just how she felt about that idea. It was a little surprising that Katana was quietly backing up the idea. Thankfully, the next person was Black Canary and she was at least civil about the whole thing.

"Let's consider this pragmatically," she said then. "Most of the people here are women, so unless a Batwoman is an acceptable alternative, all we know for certain is that a man wearing the cowl will have the same impact as the original. So we have three options in Nightwing, Red Robin, and Green Arrow.

"Right there, we need to cross off Arrow. He has his own city to take care of and he can't keep wearing the cowl for the rest of his life. No offense to you, Red Robin, but you're too young and you don't have the same body type as Batman. So if there's anyone that can wear it, it's…"

Canary purposefully trailed off as everyone turned their heads towards Dick. If he was already feeling sick, his stomach nearly exploded from nausea. Considering the lack of objection from the other two Bat-candidates, it was clear he was the only one even being considered. With this bombshell landing in his lap and Jason's death...

It was too much.

Dick shot out of his seat, knocking it over in the process. He didn't look at the others and rushed out of the room as fast as he could, short of running.

Be Batman? He couldn't be Batman. He couldn't even protect one of his own kids much less step into those shoes. The burden was too great and he wasn't the man for it.

It did not bother Shiva that there were obstacles before her. In fact, she preferred as many as possible to attempt impeding her. It made for a greater challenge.

Fate, however, removed those obstacles this time. As if the fighting around her was cognizant of the impending clash before her and her latest objective, the assassins and mercenaries parted before her, creating a direct path to Zsasz. Strolling forward, she approached the man, seeing the man in his entirety.

Zsasz caught sight of her and his eyes focused right on her. The battle might as well have not existed around him, so consuming was his attention. She knew the look in his eyes all too well. He saw her and desire had washed over him. However, unlike Bane's men earlier, this was not lust of the body, but the desire for dominance. He had seen something in her that fed his urge, his obsession with death. She was his latest target.

She would not be his latest victim, however.

"Like a lamb to the slaughter," he breathed as he began to move towards her, shrinking the distance between them even faster. "I know exactly where your mark will go, zombie."

She saw the thrust for her face coming long before he did it. Gracefully, she turned her body so that her profile faced him, the knife passing by her face, its steel glimmering in the light of the street lamps.

Then her hand was rising up, fingers wrapping around the bald man's wrist. With a twist, Zsasz's hand turned into an awkward angle, causing the man to contort his body into a bizarre pose, leaning backwards as if that would remove the strain on his arm, though his face said it had not.

As fast as lightning and with the crack of thunder, Shiva form a fist with her other hand and shot it towards her prey, slamming it right into his face. Letting go of his wrist, she allowed the man to stumble backwards a couple steps as he gripped his bruised face with one hand, holding his knife defensively between them to keep her from attacking hastily. Shiva held back, watching with amusement as she kept her profile towards him.

Dropping his hand from his face, Zsasz gazed at her, his eyes still alight with longing. "Yes, resist. Fight back as long as you can. It will only make the mark all that much more satisfying."

"I am no mark," Shiva told him, losing some of her humor about this fight. A predator was only entertaining for so long. Usually it was their limited verbal repertoire that rob her of her enjoyment. "I am greater than that."

"You are a zombie and nothing more," the scarred man retorted as he once more assumed an offensive stance, creeping towards her slowly, cautiously. "You live a life of the mundane, trapped in perpetual—"

Shiva was like a blur as she struck. Pivoting on one foot, she fully faced the man as she darted towards him, shooting her left hand up, fingers curled inward, palm prominent. As her palm rose upward and collided with Zsasz's hand, she forced it upward, leaving the man completely defenseless. With her right hand, she had all of her fingers stiffened and straight, thumb curled into the palm. She crossed her hand over her chest just before she lashed out with it, delivering a chop to Zsasz's throat and silencing him as he choked and gagged from the blow.

Leaning backwards, Shiva put all of her weight on one leg as she rose the other one up high, keeping it bent at the knee. As her body tilted to one side, she then snapped her leg out, landing a kick to Zsasz's chest and sending hims stumbling backwards several steps.

Shiva held her ground even as she lowered her leg back to the ground. Her face was a mask of emotionless stone, empty to feeling. There was no glory, or honor to be found here.

Zsasz came to a stop several feet from her, a hand wrapped around his throat as he fought for air. It took him several moments, but once he had sufficiently recovered, a look of rage appeared on his face. "You…" he growled.

"Are beyond you, worm," the woman coolly finished for him. "Call me what you will: a mark, a zombie, I do not care. I am none of those things. I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.

"And now I will destroy yours."

An animalistic roar came from Zsasz as he charged at her. Shiva's arms began dancing in front of her in a familiar kata. Zsasz thrust his knife at her, her forearm blocking the strike. Pulling back, Zsasz immediately stabbed at her again and again, Shiva's weaving arms blocking, pushing aside, and stopping each slash and thrust. Each failed cut frustrated Zsasz as he grew more frenzied with every attack.

Shiva worried not. She saw all.

At the last moment, when another thrust was coming for her face, the woman countered, delivering a palm strike to his hand. This caused Zsasz to lose his grip on the blade and send it flipping high into the air.

With the same hand, Shiva grabbed onto Zsasz's wrist and held tight even as she spun to a side. Soon, the back of her head felt the man's arm press against it, the elbow just by her ear. Jerking her head backwards and her hand forward, she hyper-extended the arm against her skull until she heard a snap as bone was broken.

Immediately, Zsasz was screaming as his unjuried arm shot up to grab at his broken arm. His concern for his well-being was his downfall. Quickly lifting up one leg, Shiva shot it downwards, stomping on the side of his ankle, forcing it to bend at an awkward angle until there too was a snap. Zsasz dropped to a knee to relieve the pain that was undoubtedly racing up his leg and burning throughout his foot.

Even still, Shiva still held onto the bald man's wrist, so his arm was extended upwards towards her. Keeping it one place, she spun around so that she faced the man, holding her free hand up into the air, just in time to catch Zsasz's now-falling knife.

Bringing it down before her face, she paused to examine the blade. "Fine craftsmanship," she admired. "Such a weapon must have seen much bloodshed, yours and your fallen alike. I am curious how many victims it has cut."

Her eyes then focused on Zsasz. "But now it's next victim is you."

She then extended her arm out to her side, holding it at shoulder-height, the tip of the knife pointed forward. With a step forward, she swung the knife, arcing it until she drove it right into the side of Zsasz's head, piercing right through his ear.

There was a choked gasp before blood began to trickle out of the corner of Zsasz's mouth and drip drown from his eyes. He stayed that way, frozen on one knee until Shiva released him, his body falling backwards and landing with a dull thud.

Shiva gazed down upon him for only a moment before she turned her back on him. The sounds of battle had quieted and the moment she looked, she found only two of Bane's men still lived. Ra's assassins stood between them and her, keeping them at bay so that she could toy with Zsasz without interruption. There had been no command given by her to do so, but they had responded as such.

Perfect.

"Men of Bane," she called out to them. "This battle is finished. Go back to your master and tell them what you saw here. Tell him that I am coming and there is no one that may protect him from me."

Then she left, vanishing into the night. Her message would be delivered and Zsasz's body was its physical manifestation. Hopefully Bane had more worthy adversaries under his command, otherwise her foray into Gotham would be but a hollow victory.

There was something different about the activity in the department and Sawyer figured it had to do with the bridges. At first, they had thought it a planned out strike by Bane, but then the call from the Commissioner had come in.

If there had been any officers that had been gungho about the National Guard showing up, most of it had sunk with the remains of those bridges. Part of the problem was that they were on the wrong side of the bridges; another was that they were trapped among a population of people who were beginning to panic. It wouldn't be long before the looting began as desperate people either sought to grab as much as they could and hole up in their homes with their ill-gotten gains, or tried to find ways to get over the rivers and to the other side to safety.

It would be their jobs to do their best to prevent that from happening. However, another problem was that there were officers who wanted nothing more than to join any and all would-be looters.

This was unprecedented. For Sawyer, even though she had seen some out of this world stuff back in Metropolis, this was something entirely new for her. At least in her old city, there had been a flying man who was able to inspire hope in the people; not so much Gotham. Theirs was gone, taken from them in a very brutal fashion.

Bizarre, though, she could handle. You had to after giant robots, enormous meteors, and that one invasion of toys that no one could ever forget. This, however, was entirely different because the perpetrators were some super criminals, wealthy socialites, or even aliens; this time it was their own military.

It seemed that even they weren't willing to take Bane head on, for whatever reason.

All of which led to all the activity in the precinct. Sawyer was arming herself with as much firepower as she could, having a feeling she was going to need to. Others around her were doing the same, with greater or lesser amounts of calm. There were the officers that were running about, some shouting, others looking like they were about to take off, including a few that looked decked out for war.

Then came Petit.

The man tried shouting over all the noise, which seemed like that was getting him nowhere. Then he had what few SWAT members they had left take up posts at the exits, their guns raised. Petit, meanwhile, pulled out his sidearm and discharged it up at the ceiling.

Never had she seen anyone stop and pull out their weapons as fast as her fellow officers, all of them aiming their guns at the SWAT commander as if they considered him a threat. Petit must have used up all the luck he would ever have in his life because no one had fired on him after such a stupid move.

"Now that I have your attention, I want you all to shut up and listen to me," Petit ordered as he holstered his gun. "We all know what's going on so let's cut to the chase. We're on our own here and there's going to be no help coming for us. That's why we need to stick together."

"Screw you, Bill!" someone cried out.

"You step out of here, you're dead meat, you know that?" Petit hollered back, gesturing towards a far wall. "Do you know what's out there? A lot of people, many of whom don't like us. You can bet your ass that they'll be gunning for us. We need to stick together and do what we need to do. We need to get a grip over the city and make sure that it doesn't fall apart. That's our goddamn jobs."

"Is that what the Commissioner told you?" another officer asked, though it came out more as an accusation.

"The Commissioner is on the wrong side of the river, boys. I'll be the one taking charge here until such time as he returns," the mustached man answered with much more poise than Sawyer expected. "This is not the time to fall apart. We're the last hope, people, not some weirdos in Halloween costumes. We're taking this city back one block at a time if we have to, and the sooner the better. You can bet that it won't take Bane long to try the same."

"Who put you in charge?"

"Dumbass, no one did, but someone has to have the goddamn balls to stand up. Since none of you pansies are doing it, I will," was the thundered response. "And if you think that you're just going to walk out of here and ignore your oaths, my men would like to have a word with you." And now some of these officers were noticing the SWATs blocking the doors.

Having enough of this show, Sawyer stood up and walked her way through the gathering of police officers, emerging at the front where Petit was standing on his metaphorical soap box. "Isn't this too much, Commander?" she demanded.

"Lieutenant, for all intents and purpose, we're on our own. It's going to be a fucking no man's land out there, but I am not going to lose Gotham to anybody who thinks it's theirs for the taking," Petit retorted. "Anybody and everybody will be a threat, and it's our jobs to take care of threats. Let me tell you this: I'm going to finish what Gordon started here and I'm not going to stop until I put a bullet in Bane's fucking head. Who here is with me!"

That last part was shouted for all to hear, and the tone demanded a response from the men and women in uniform. It was a response that he got, many of them yelling out their support for Petit. Yes, there were a few staying quiet, all for one reason or another, but they were in an extreme minority. Petit was starting to rev up the local law enforcement machine, and he was about to take full advantage of the declaration of martial law that the mayor had order not too long ago.

"So what'll it be, Lieutenant?" Though his voice was not as loud as before, she could still hear it over the shouting of the other cops. "Are you with me, or against me?"

Oh, Dan would have a field day with this guy, but Turpin wasn't here, only her. She would need to step up if she was going to survive this mess, and this time no Superman was going to fly in and save the day.

In a way, she kinda like that.

"What do you think? The city's not going to save itself," is what she told Petit who gave her a nod. He would accept that answer for now.

Sawyer, on the other hand, hoped that she was doing the right thing.

It seemed this night was not yet finished with him. He had only heard the report of the recent strike against him, and based on the details he was told, Ra's al Ghul could be the only person behind it.

The loss of Zsasz did not concern him; it was the message left behind that held his attention.

His first thought, indeed his first action, was to snort. He needed no protection, especially not from someone of Zsasz's caliber. It was an insult to think that he was afraid of any conflict. This agent of al Ghul was taunting him, wanting him to come out and make the fatal mistake that would end him. He was tempted to call this agent out on her challenge and prove to her what she was up against.

That would be a mistake. Only an amateur would be hotheaded enough to go for such an approach. At the same time, that challenge needed to be answered.

There was too much that needed to be done, that needed him to keep his involvement. This was another obstacle interfering with his conquest and only added to his frustration.

Taking in the level of skill of this new player as well, anything less than himself would be futile. Sending more men in would be like throwing them away and his ranks were beginning to thin once more. Losing more was beginning to become unacceptable.

"How do you want to deal with this?" Zombie asked. "Shall I meet with this latest combatant?"

"No. As skillful as you are, underestimating any that the Demon's Fang can field would be an error, one that I can no longer afford," Bane refused.

"So we're just going to let them keep bleeding us dry?" Bird exclaimed, incredulous.

"That is also not an option." Bane was thinking, trying to come up with a new strategy to handle this latest change.

Without warning, an epiphany struck him. Zsasz had been hired help, nothing more. A recruit from Bird's efforts to bring in outside, and local, help. This, by all accounts, woman was new. She did not match the other female he had observed in al Ghul's company, nor did she have a child nearby. Since this was the first reported sighting, she had either been kept back as a precaution, or brought in.

That was what he needed to do.

"We will outsource this," he stated, catching both of his lieutenants off-guard.

"But didn't we do that already? That's what that serial killer was!" Bird protested.

"I do not mean local. I mean professional. People with equal, or greater skill who are not rabid like that killer. I became acquainted with some such individuals during my time as freelance," the masked man explained. "I will put out a contract similar to the one I offered Zsasz, but this time I will accept nothing less than the Demon himself. Get me Cobblepot; a man like him will know how to contact such individuals."

"What about the blockade?" Bird pressed.

"As I told Cobblepot, only the worthy will be paid, and if something as simple as this is capable of stopping them, then I do not need them. For the best, it is not even a minor obstacle; they'll get through and they will carry out my will no matter what expense it will cost.

"Remember, once Tetch completes my machine, it will not matter what their loyalty is. This is but a means to stall and distract. I will not lose Gotham, not to anyone, and especially not now, after all the time and resources I have put into it. We already have our trump card, but we cannot allow anyone to learn about it until after it is too late to stop it."

"Understood," Zombie agreed, nodding his head. The thin man placed a hand on Bird's shoulder, a silent way to convey to the blond American to not press the matter further. They had their battle plan and it was their responsibility to carry it out.

Bane didn't spare the two another look. They had their orders and it was up to him to iron out the details.

To himself, he swore that before it was all over, he would do more than break Ra's al Ghul. No, he would not rest under that man's skull was crushed between his two hands and leave the body for the scavengers to tear apart.

To Guest: You definitely mentioned her. Her connection was a little off though

To FlackAttack: When she speaks to Ra's upon arriving in Gotham, she does indicate she's met him. What the encounter was like went unmentioned though