She stood there expectantly, waiting for him to say something, anything. And Batman could only stare.

This wasn't the girl he had living with him, teaching her his craft, honing her fighter's spirit into something that could be used to help people. Images of Cassandra assaulted him. There she was sitting by the supercomputer, fussing over her mask on the cave floor. And there, she was trying on her modified armor, critically eyeing the yellow Bat-outline on her chest, testing the fit of her gloves on her hand, and making sure her cape didn't get in the way of her movement. And there was her holding a silver tray with a minimalist breakfast for him as he poured over case files.

He even saw her roughly waking him up in the mornings as she ripped off his sheets and forced the curtains open.

All of that flashed before his eyes, only to be replaced with the older, more mature Cassandra that stood before him. There was no telling how much time had gone by, but she waited patiently. Before, she would have shown some uncertainty at his long, emotionless gazes, but here she expected it and knew all she had to do was wait, no matter how long it took. So Batman tried to say something to break this silence between them.

"You can talk."

The expectant look on Cassandra's face dropped. "After all this time, that's all you can say?" she asked, just before a thought struck her. "That's right, you left before I learned to speak and read and write."

Each word struck him to his core. He had missed that? When? How? "How did you learn?" he asked, taking a step towards her. "You were struggling with simple words. Now you can speak entire sentences."

"That's a long story," she answered him.

"I have time."

The corner of her mouth twitched up. "I suppose you do, don't you? Before I tell you though, tell me why you're here. You at least owe me that for leaving."

Leaving? What the hell did that mean? Apparently his face was showing his confusion and Cassandra felt some leniency was warranted. "Superman and the Justice League said you were dead and even presented a body. But now you're here, completely fine. It's almost like that time everyone thought the Joker killed you and you came back a few years later."

Oh, so that's what she meant. Still, she was throwing a lot at him. He had been listed as dead? For how long? "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," he admitted to her, which caused her face to hardened.

"Then tell me what you do know and maybe we can figure something out," she suggested, her tone betraying her irritation.

He sighed. "All I know is I'm in some place called Neo-Gotham, where there are foot soldiers patrolling the streets, frightening everyone and not just criminals. And somehow Green Lantern is involved with them."

It was Cassandra's turn to look confused. "Uhh, yeah, that's how things have been for years."

Years? Batman hardened his face this time. None of this was making sense to him. "I'm missing quite a bit here."

"I guess so." She seemed uncertain now. "I'm not sure where you're trying to start."

"How about the beginning?" he suggested. He received a nod in agreement. "The last time I saw you, you were having trouble saying the new word we were working on. Then I went on a League mission to stop a series of Canidite bombs."

"Vandal Savage's bombs," Cassandra interjected. Upon seeing his stare, she elaborated, "The man behind that plot was Vandal Savage and that was part of a plan to take over the White House."

Was that what was going on? Yet, that didn't explain anything, not to him anyways. "Go on."

The dark-haired woman seemed to be lost in her own thoughts at that moment. It took her a moment before she asked, "The last thing you remember, it was going after that bomb that blew up?"

Batman saw the bomb in plain sight, sitting on a small folding table. He also saw the timer flashing 0:05...0:04...0:03…

"Oh—"

The vigilante nodded. "That's right." The sudden sensation of fire burning him and the force of the explosion rushed him. "I died there, didn't I?"

That caused Cassandra to raise an eyebrow. "Your presence here would indicate otherwise."

Okay, where the heck had she picked up sarcasm? He was pretty sure it wasn't him. Still, he had been in the blast radius of an experimental explosive agent. By all rights, he should've been killed; yet, he was here instead. "What happened after that?" he questioned. Maybe if he learned what Cassandra knew, he could piece this all together.

"After that, you were missing. I ended up spending my nights with Helena and the Birds," she started.

And suddenly he knew just where her sarcasm came from.

"About a month after you disappeared, Vandal Savage made his attempt on the White House. He successfully infiltrated and took the President and his staff hostage. The Justice League went in to stop it and were successful."

There was a silent "but" that was going unsaid. Batman could read it in her body language. "Something happened there," he surmised.

"The Flash, Wally West, was killed by Savage."

As if this night couldn't have hit him any harder. First, Cassandra could talk; second, Flash had been killed in the line of duty. Suddenly, he had a growing suspicious this wasn't an alternate reality.

"That was twenty years ago," the dark-haired woman said, as if she were reading his thoughts.

Twenty years. He was in the future. Twenty years in the future. Dear God.

Something about this wasn't right. Though Canidite was experimental, there was no way it could throw someone through time. Explosives simply didn't work that way.

"After that, the League lead by Superman put the whole world on notice," she continued, pushing aside his musings as he refocused on her. "They went from being reactive to proactive. Military hot spots, politically tense regions, crime-ridden cities, they went into all of them and began systematically stopping all conflict. At first, everyone was praising them.

"But then they found out problems in Africa, the Middle East, and other regions weren't just limited to those area. They realized Western governments were involved and began going after them too. The ones most hit were the ones that were on the U.N. Security Council: the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China. Shortly after that, they formed the One Earth Government and forced the world's governments to join it.

"It was there that people began to have some reservations about what the League was doing. Tensions began to well up in the superhero community and lines were drawn. The League then declared that anyone that wasn't serving justice on their side were outlaws and would be thrown in jail. That meant heroes would be placed in the same jails and prisons as the people they had personally arrested."

"A veritable powder keg," Batman commented, his hands tightening into fists.

Cassandra nodded her agreement. "Of course, with the Justice League having their eyes everywhere, they forgot just how much of a turnstile the criminal justice system is. A group of super-villains got out onto the streets and started causing mayhem. For added insult, they did it right in Metropolis."

"And with Superman pushing this new world order, he didn't take it too well."

"That's putting it mildly," she replied dryly. "Once the League captured every super villain, he proceeded to lobotomize them with his heat vision."

Batman's mouth dropped open in horror. That couldn't be, that wasn't the Superman he knew. His stomach began to twist in knots at the very thought of it. However, any doubt he had as to Cassandra's words were slowly dissipated as he looked to her forehead, right where two perfectly circular dots were.

"He didn't just stop with villains, did he?" he asked reluctantly, dreading what his gut told him to be true. With the evidence right in front of his face, he had no reason to doubt it.

Cassandra confirmed it with her next words, albeit in a roundabout way. "Sides were taken after that. You'll be happy to know just about vigilante in Gotham was against this new tactic by Superman. They even tried organizing a way to get the villains underground."

"Why would they…" he trailed off as realization dawned on him. Superman hadn't stopped the lobotomizing on villains in the streets; he had begun going into the jails and prisons. The League's new proactive mandate at work. "Why didn't anyone in the League stop him?!" he demanded, anger flushing his face.

"Stop him?" the dark-haired woman repeated as if it were the most ridiculous thing she had heard. "They were encouraging him every step of the way. They used Flash's death as justification. 'We can't let that happen again.' 'It still haunts us.' They preach it to anyone foolish enough to listen." A look of disgust was on her face. "They still do."

They had done all of this because of Flash? The very thought sickened Batman to his core. They had turned a memory into a demon, one they would use again and again to justify themselves. He had seen that too many times before. Yet, he got the feeling this insane story was far from over.

"As I was saying, the Gotham heroes began helping the bad guys, trying to get them to safety. Nightwing, Black Canary, and Huntress were leading that operation when the League interrupted us. I wish I could tell you what had happened, but at the time I didn't understand what was being said. I just knew that they were in the wrong and had to be stopped. Both sides argued with each other and finally a fight broke out. A couple of us were killed that night." A melancholy look appeared on her face. "Spoiler got in the way of Superman's heat vision and was cut in half. When Manhunter tried to go to her aid, Hawkgirl crushed her skull with her mace. I'm not sure who did it, but someone called a retreat. I was caught with Katana and after everything that had happened, Superman decided to lobotomize the both of us."

The sickening churning in Batman's stomach stopped then. A cold fury took its place. He could just imagine it, the Kryptonian holding Cassandra by the neck, or maybe one of the others held her down while he fired his heat vision, burning holes through her skull and damaging her brain.

Cassandra raised a trembling hand to the spots on her forehead. "I can still feel it sometimes," she whispered. "The pain, my fear, and then nothing."

Batman wasn't an overly emotional man and was even less expressive when he did feel. The testimonials to that were numerous. However, he knew a girl that was in need of comfort when he saw one and he closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her and pressing her into his chest. Cassandra didn't resist, her arms falling to her sides awkwardly. But then, she slowly returned the embrace, burying her face into his chest.

They were like that for a long time, standing in silence while comforting the other. It was ultimately Cassandra that broke the silence. "I forgot how safe I feel when I'm in your arms," she remarked softly before squeezing him harder. "I've missed it."

She then pulled away, a sad smile on her face. Though his throat was thick with emotion, which was making it hard to swallow, the dark-clad man asked, "What happened after that?"

"I don't really know," she admitted. "It was something like a few years that I was out of action. I'm not entirely sure the exact amount since I didn't really know the concept of time then. From what I found out later, the Martian Manhunter had a change of heart. After the League began going after heroes, he decided to organize a resistance group in secret. He recruited everyone that wasn't in league with the Justice League, keeping his spot so that he could funnel intelligence. Whatever plans the League had were either delayed or rendered useless at that point. They then did a full media blitz, lambasting what became known as the Insurgency. They even used the One Earth Government as a means to further their agenda; it was no longer a government body so much as a piece of propaganda, and they've used it like that ever since.

"However, things began to go against the Insurgents, mostly because of their preference for no killing. They refused to kill anyone aligned with with the newly-formed Regime, but the League didn't have such qualms. They slowly whittled the group down, either through lobotomy, or death. Superman and the Regime always claimed they were accidental deaths, but as Helena once said, 'Tell me how Superman accidentally put his fist through Nightwing's face. It must've been a lot of accidents since his skull was paste'."

"When did that happen?"

"Later. You see, when Martian Manhunter saw the Insurgent numbers dwindling, he began going to all of Superman's lobotomy victims and began healing them. He used his telepathy powers to rewire their brains so that they could function around the damaged brain area. Since most of those people either hated Superman to begin with, or disagreed with him, they were willing to take up the Insurgency's cause—or they just went into hiding."

"Which is how you're here now," Batman surmised.

Cassandra nodded. "I was the last one he helped."

There was a voice. It started softly, but grew louder and louder. Then with a concussive force, she was hit with words.

Words with very loud voices.

Light. What? Room. Sit. Sitting. Huh? Clothes. Pants. Lay. Gray. Stone. Was. What was? Pain! Hurt! Hurting! Too. Much. Too much!

Hands! Hair! Touching! Hands touching hair! The. The pain! Stop! Too much! Make it stop!

"Calm yourself, child."

A new voice. It was soft, comforting. The pain went away. Slowly it did. Eyes, eyes that were closed. She. She slowly opened them.

Floor. She was sitting on a floor. Legs were lying in front of her. Back was up against a wall. A big man, green man was in front of her. He had a kind face. Had a hand on her shoulder. "You will be okay," he said. He said? His mouth did not open. How did he say?

"In your mind."

A smile, small one, showed on his face. Then his mouth moved. "You are experiencing a rush of information. This is new to you because that is not how you always thought. It will take some time, but you will adjust."

Not always thought? It did not make sense. Her eyes focused on his face. She could see warmth, kindness, gentleness. He was good. He was being good to her. She could make sense of it. Her eyes fell to his body. He had one knee on the floor. His body was relaxed, not a threat.

"It seems your mind is resisting." Her eyes went back to his face. He was frowning. Not happy. Why was he not happy? "It is still trying to interpret my body, not my words."

Something in her mind. Searching. Searching. Found. In one moment, everything changed. Though her head hurt, the pounding intensified for a moment before receding back to its previous level. The green man seemed satisfied as his small smile returned. "I'm not sure if my fix is temporary or not, but that is something we will work on. For now, we must leave."

She wasn't sure why they needed to leave, but she felt as if he was right. So she tried to climb onto her feet, but found she had no balance. Her hands pressed down on the floor, trying to keep herself from landing hard on it. The green man stared at her worryingly.

Then something occurred to him. "You have not used your muscles in quite some time. We will need to correct that later." He then reached his big, strong arms and lifted her off the floor. With one arm beneath her knees and the other against her back, he then walked out of the room.

And then a loud sound rang out.

It scared her, her body tensing up. Why was it so loud? What was it for? The green man jerked his head to a side. "The alarm," he said in disappointment. Then he turned and walked away from it. She could only look around the hall they were in, seeing a series of doors, much like the one they had left. These were all closed though, a series of random numbers and letter labeling them.

Then the green man stopped. Again, his head turned to a side, but she sensed it wasn't because of the alarm. She tried to listen too, but only heard a dull thud from somewhere behind him.

"No."

He had spoken, just one word, but it meant so much more. There was concern...no, not concern. Fear. It was fear she heard.

Suddenly, the green man picked up his pace, coming to a space that branched off from the hall—an alcove. It was empty save for what looked like a vent towards the floor.

The green man began to reach out with the hand that had been pressed against her back, the feel of his forearm replacing it. The fingers then stretched out, snaking their way to the vent, where they carefully did...something to it. All she knew was that he pulled the vent open.

Then the green man's body began to change. It seemed to wrap around her, encasing her. It was only for a few seconds or so, but when he pulled away, she was lying in the ventilation shaft, the vent covering being put back in place.

"Stay still, Cassandra," the green man told her. Cassandra? Was that her name? It sounded nice coming from him. Then she felt his presence in her mind again. It felt as if something was dulling her mind, putting her into a daze.

The green man then stood up and walked away, turning into the hall. Cassandra saw all of this through the grating.

And then a loud explosion rang out.

The green man turned around, standing on one side of the alcove. Soon, there was someone else standing on the other side. "It's been you," an enraged voice growled. "This entire time, it's been you."

"Superman," the green man greeted. "Calm yourself."

"No!" Superman roared. "How dare you do this to me, J'onn! Do you have any idea what damage you've caused?!"

"Yes, I do," J'onn replied quietly. "It is why I'm doing this."

Superman seemed taken back by this. "What? What do you mean?"

"Look around. All of these people robbed of their minds. It's not right."

"You know why I did it. It was to stop them from hurting others. To stop them from hurting themselves. I did it for them!"

"They disagreed with you!" J'onn yelled. Cassandra got the sense he did not normally do that. "That's all they did and you performed lobotomies! That isn't the act of a righteous man. That's the act of—"

"Don't you dare say it," Superman warned.

J'onn straightened out his shoulders, a defiant look on his face. "The act of a dictator."

There was a tense silence. Then, "Do you not remember Bialya? When we deposed its dictator, you once asked me how that man could do the terrible things he did. You are repeating his example."

"I am saving the world!" Superman screamed. "And I will save it from its worst enemy: itself!"

"And who said it ever needing saving?!"

Again they fell silent; however, it was Superman who ended up breaking the silence this time. "You've betrayed me. I can't believe it, of all the people who would understand, it's you. You lost your planet, just like me. You even lost your family. You should understand this better than anyone!"

"It is because I understand that I cannot condone this any further."

Superman's face hardened. "This betrayal is the same as treason. The penalty for treason," his eyes began to glow red, "is death."

Bright red beams fired from the man's eyes. They hit J'onn square in the chest, his green skin blackening. He screamed, such a terrible scream, loud and wracked with pain. Whatever those beams were made off, they grew bright, bigger, until J'onn was consumed by them. That still didn't stop her from seeing his body burned to the bone, which blacked in an instant.

And then those cruel beams stopped. Blackened bone scattered in every which direction. The skull though, clattered until it stopped right before Superman. The man in red-and-blue stared dispassionately at the skull before he raised his foot and set it on top of the skull. He then pressed down and shattered it into hundreds of bone fragments.

Cassandra stared through the grating, watching as the man seemed to soak in what he had done, then turned around and left. It was some time before she found herself alert to move. Able enough to comprehend what she had seen. Then be the last person to mourn the man that had given her life back.

"I think the only way I got out of there was because of what J'onn did to me," Cassandra admitted. "He suppressed...something, I'm not entirely sure what. But it kept me from reacting from what I saw. My heart didn't beat faster, my breathing didn't quicken, nothing gave me away to Superman's super senses. Even then, he was so enraged, I doubt he could've heard anything over the blood pounding in his ears."

She sighed then. "I went into hiding after that. Spent a lot of time trying to make sense of all the words in my head. It was a long time before I came back, but by then, Superman's Regime had consolidated power and had recruited new members. The Insurgency had done the same, but they were weakening. Once it was realized that lobotomizing could be reversed with the right power, the Regime began killing everyone that stood in their way. Nightwing was one of the first to find that out. Helena and the rest of Birds went shortly after."

A sigh. "That's when Zatanna led a revolt. She had obtained some amulet from someone she called Dr. Fate, which was promised to bring the Regime down. It was the last good chance we had and we threw everything into it. She even managed to reach Superman; but then Wonder Woman intervened and killed her. Ever since that day, Superman felt as if there were no more threats worthy of him and began delegating his responsibilities. He even formed a private army and gave them the 5-U-93-Rs."

Batman frowned. Even though he felt a pang of sadness upon hearing of Zatanna's demise, this 5-U-93-R was new information that he needed to learn about. "5-U-93-R?"

"It's a...well, for lack of a better word, it's a magic pill." At seeing his incredulous look, she explained, "They're pills that enhances the user. Strength, stamina, endurance—it heightens then to superhuman levels."

So that's what those guards at the warehouse had meant by enhancement pills. Reaching to his belt, he pulled out the pill he had obtained at the Hall of Justice. "Do you mean this?"

Immediately, Cassandra was in front of him, staring at the pill. "Where did you get this?" she asked as she looked up to him.

"From a guard in my cell. He gave it to me."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "The guards aren't known for being that generous."

"He didn't have much of a choice."

She smiled at that, one that slowly grew more somber. "It's...so good to have you here. We've...I've lost so many people. Helena, the Birds, Black Lightning; for once it's nice to have someone come back."

"Is that the end of your story?" Batman asked then. "Because if so, a lot has been happened since I've been gone."

Not to mention the startling changes in the Justice League. Though there was clear evidence of what they had done, Cassandra's forehead being most prominent, he was having a hard time seeing the jump from defending the White House to killing people. Something just didn't make sense.

"Aside from who's dead?" the dark-haired woman spoke, drawing him out of his own head. "There isn't much left."

"Then tell me what the current status is of the Insurgency."

Cassandra blew air out of her mouth, causing some of her hair to flutter by her face. "A mess to be honest. It's splintering into factions, one led by Oliver Queen, the other by...well, me at this point. There's one group calling itself the Bat Underground and they picked me to be their leader."

He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. This wasn't the first time he had heard that name. "Bat Underground?"

She grinned. "Never underestimate the power of this symbol." At this, she pointed to the bat on her chest. "When people began to feel as if they would be forever under the Regime's boot, someone found inspiration in it. Others did too. Soon, there was an underground movement working to overthrow the Regime. From what I hear, the former League Founders were furious about it."

Is that so? Though he was not happy to be waking up in this reality, it seemed there was quite a bit of work to be done. He needed to get to the bottom of what had happened. Despite the fact he had no reason to not believe the woman before him, there were gaps in her story that were missing vital clues. He needed to find out what they were. "Then I guess you have your newest recruit," he told her.

Cassandra looked stunned. "You mean...you're going to fight with us? Against your own friends?"

"My friends don't kill," he immediately responded. It was pure instinct. "Nor do they do any of the things you've said they've done. That's a line we don't cross, can't cross."

"But maiming is completely okay," the dark-haired woman added sardonically.

Ugh, that old argument. There had been quite a few people that had questioned his methods and this was one of the primary ones. "They still have a chance to reform and make something of their life. They can't do that when they're dead."

"Still, you have to admit that perhaps some people should die."

Batman leaned towards the woman. "That's the rationale that put the Justice League into the position of executioners. If the world was truly like that, that they could allow exceptions and advocate for the taking of life, then there wouldn't be an Insurgency."

Cassandra held her hands up in surrender. "Take it easy there. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into. You have to be one hundred percent behind your convictions because it's easy to be seduced by those arguments. I've seen it happen."

The Dark Knight mulled those words over. It was just another thing he'd need to examine later. There was enough that needed to be done in the present. One way or another, he'd get to the bottom of everything soon enough.

"So, mind telling me why the computer's down?" he asked.

"That's because of Cyborg. He's one of the Regime's members and he has access to all communication systems world wide. I shut it down so that he couldn't get access to it."

"Not a bright move." Seeing Cassandra frown, Batman began walking to the computer, ignoring the shuriken still embedded in the chair, and took a seat in it. Typing on the keys, he began to activate it. "You purposefully blinded yourself to its data banks and resources."

"Uh, weren't you listening? Cyborg could hack into it and reveal this location," she shot back, coming to stand next to him. She was giving off nervous energy as the monitor turned on. "I'm serious, stop booting it up."

"The computer isn't connected to any network this Cyborg would have access to," the vigilante responded. "When I set it up, I created a ghost network that siphons off access through a multitude of servers. It was meant to prevent anyone from hacking into the system, but allowed me all access. In fact, there's a program that disguises my hacks, making anyone watching think there's a subroutine activating."

"So...you're telling me you could potentially hack anything anywhere and no one would be the wiser?"

"I probably could hack this Cyborg if I wanted to, not that that's necessary." The computer finished its activation sequence then, a window opening to indicate it was ready for use.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?" she demanded then.

"You never asked."

"I could barely talk!"

Batman gave her a look. "You were more interested in training and patrolling the city."

There was a moment of silence. "Fine, I guess I should have focused more on learning. Happy?"

A smirk appeared on his face. "Yes, yes, I am."

Cassandra muttered something under her breath, probably something unflattering. However, before they could continue their banter, an alarm went off. Both vigilante looked to the screen, Cassandra moving closer as a look of fear appeared on her face. "What's happening? What's with the alert?"

Batman began typing on the keyboard, a new window appearing. It was of Earth with several flashing dots above it. He frowned. "Several objects are entering Earth's atmosphere."

There was a sigh of relief from the dark-haired woman. "Here I thought Cyborg had found us."

Had she not been listening to him? It seemed she had traded some of her better listening traits for the ability to comprehend words. He wasn't sure if it was an adequate trade at the moment. However, as he stared at the image, he realized the number of dots was increasing. That could only mean one thing.

An invasion.

To Guest: Quite a few actually, with major repercussions on the way

To FlackAttack: I can guarantee you that this story will be impacting future ones, some small, others much larger. In general, I do believe that Batman has never stopped making countermeasures, be it in this series, or in the comic canon. It's just what he does. I do find the moral high ground an intriguing idea. It won't come up in the next story in this series since there's already a plan in place, but that doesn't preclude it in the ones following.