The sound of keys typing filled the room. The only light was from a desk lamp and not much else. There was no need to alert the neighbors to what he was doing.

Michael had his eyes focused on the computer screen. Green letters and numbers upon a black background was shown from the monitor, the man scrolling upwards as he continued to enter more code. It was something to keep his mind active rather than rust away at his mind-numbing IT job. It had been a long time since he had been working on some of the most secure encryptions in the world, but the job paid the bills—and more importantly kept him off the Regime's radar.

Entering the last few keystrokes, Michael hit the enter button the let the program run. Leaning back in his chair, the cotton of his pajamas rubbing up against his skin, he watch the screen process his command, all new lines of data scrolling over his monitor.

"It's good to see you're still in practice."

Michael yelled out in surprised as he spun his chair around. There, standing in the corner of the room, was a man in black. He seemed to go in and out of the young man's vision as the shadows seemed to grow from him rather than hide him. He was only sure that there was someone else in the room due to his white eyes.

"Who are you?" he demanded as he shot out of his chair, knocking it to the floor. "How did you get in here?"

The man looked to his right, which Michael copied, finding the heavy curtains that covered the window slightly parted. The window itself was opened, allowing a gentle breeze in.

Oh, so that's how he got in.

Looking back to the man in black, he found the man had closed the distance between them, standing a few feet away. This allowed the dim light to show more of his form and reveal that he had a cape wrapped around his body. Swallowing, he reiterated, "You didn't tell me who you are."

"Batman."

Michael blinked his eyes owlishly. "Batman? Like the guy the Regime said died twenty years ago?"

"I didn't die."

Again, his eyes blinked rapidly before he snorted in derision. "You're telling me you just decided to take a twenty year break, or something? I find that hard to believe; I mean, you'd have to be in your fifties if that were the case."

"Which puts you in your forties, Mr. Terrific," the "Batman" responded.

Michael stiffened. How did he know about that? He hadn't been called that name in...well, years. Yet, he used it so casually it might as well have been his real name.

Not waiting for a response, "Batman" continued, "I understand you don't share the same beliefs as the Regime. Is that true, or am I mistaken?"

"Hey, I don't want any trouble," the dark-skinned man immediately replied, holding his hands out in front of him to placate the guy. "I gave up being Mr. Terrific a long time ago so that I didn't end up dead like the others. I'm not hurting anyone doing what I'm doing now."

He got the impression "Batman" didn't believe him. If it weren't for the mask, he would have been certain the man was raising an eyebrow at him. He then looked to his computer screen. "Mind telling me what you're doing?"

"Just checking my firewall," he defended. "See? Nothing at all."

There was a silence between them, one that made Michael uncomfortable the longer it went on. Finally, "Batman" said, "I may not be well-versed in computer code, but I know enough to know that you're not running a firewall check. In fact, the firewall isn't even yours; it belongs to a Regime garrison a couple states away."

His stomach sank. Oh shit, he had been caught. All of his efforts to remain underground had been for naught. He swallowed deeply. "H-how did you find me?"

"Your address was in the phone book," the man replied succinctly. "But I'm not here to bust you for hacking. I'm here to recruit you for hacking."

It was Michael's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Recruit me for hacking?"

"The only reason you're hacking a Regime database is to find out what happened today after an alien invasion. Most people in the Western Hemisphere were treated to an event in which a second sun appeared out of nowhere, then just as quickly disappeared. I can give you those answers without you risking yourself in a hack."

"And how do you know those answers?" Michael shot back. "Are you some kind of detective, or something?"

"Or something," the man grunted. "The choice is yours, but the Bat Underground could use your assistance in overthrowing the Regime once and for all."

Oh, this guy was a headcase. Suddenly, Michael wasn't so worried. All he had to do was run him off and he'd be alright. He was well aware of the Insurgency and their—ahem—lack of progress. "You'll have to excuse me if I find that boast to be highly unbelievable. I've heard claims like that before and the Regime still stands. What makes you think this time will be any different?"

The man in black leaned towards him, his eyes seeming to bore right into Michael's soul. "Because I've beaten them before. Your help will be greatly appreciated, but I won't force you to come. The choice is yours: let the world forever be under dictatorial rule, or do something about it."

Huh, well, if you put it that way…

Again, they were both silent, but eventually it was Michael who broke it. "Let me get my suit."

Between the time Batman had read case files on prospective teammates and arriving with Michael Holt in tow, the room where Ra's had explained his plot had been changed.

The table was new, along with more comfortable chairs. A large, round table with a white tablecloth draped over it was situated right in the middle of the room. High-back chairs had replaced the old plastic ones. Ra's had gone out of his way to make the place more professional and presentable.

There were five of them here. At the side towards the far wall sat Ra's. Circling to his left was Holt, who sat stiffly in his chair. He had changed his appearance since Batman met him in his pajamas. He had a black and white jacket on, red outlining the hem. That shielded the black bodysuit he wore underneath it.

Next to him was Batman, keeping himself at attention as he surveyed the room. Batwoman was next to him, also keeping her posture straight. The vigilante half-expected it was because of his presence she did this, but perhaps that was how she normally sat. He hadn't missed how she seemed to carry herself taller, straighter when he was around her.

And lastly came Green Arrow, or Queen as everyone had referred to him. He hadn't changed his color scheme much, though the armor had slight differences to the one he had seen during his Man-Bat investigation. He had gotten rid of his Robin Hood hat, allowing his blond hair to be viewed by all. Out of all of them, he was slouching in his seat.

"I would like to thank all of you who have come," Ra's began. "I'm sure you are all familiar with those present, so introductions are not necessary."

"That's partly true," Queen replied, turning his chair to face the older man. "Actually, I only really know one person here and that's Batwoman. You, the other Bat guy, and the guy with the T painted on his face I can't say I've met."

Indeed, Holt had a black T on his face. Whether it was a mask or paint, it really didn't matter. "I'm Mr. Terrific," he introduced himself.

"Is that what the T stands for? Great, what makes you so terrific?"

"Mr. Holt is one of the remaining premier hackers not in the employ of, or incarcerated by, the Regime," Ra's explained. "Which makes him the top hacker in the world."

"Great, perfect. Now how about you?"

The older man tilted his head back haughtily. "I am Ra's al Ghul and I have been the sole financier of the Bat Underground."

Queen perked his head up at this. "So you're the one I have to thank for some of my toys. By the way, thanks for that." Finally, he swung his chair around to look at the Dark Knight. "And you...I've seen you before."

At this, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and unfolded it. "I picked this up on the way here, but this is all over the place if you know where to look. You're the guy the Regime wants for looking like Batman—big mistake dressing up like him for your information. They want you dead on sight."

Batman held his hand out to the archer, who slid the paper to him. Picking it up, the vigilante gazed at the wanted poster. It seemed there were a lot of people that were under the assumption he was an imposter.

Batwoman leaned forward in her seat. "Queen, this is Batman. The original."

The blond man looked to her, then back to him. "And how do you know that? Didn't he die?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that as well," Holt muttered.

"Because I know who he is under the mask," she answered them both, glancing between the two. "And this is him. There's a long story involved, but I can assure you it's him."

As Batman recalled, Queen wasn't one to be swayed so easily. He was going to need more proof than that. "The first time we met," he began, causing everyone to look to him, "you shot an arrow at me. I made it quite clear not to do that again."

"There are a lot of people I shoot arrows at," Queen dismissed. "I don't recall shooting one at a guy dressed like a bat."

The curt reply didn't faze Batman in the slightest. "We met again before Harvey Dent blew up City Hall. I distinctly recall telling you and Black Canary to stay out of it. That episode ended with the three of us fighting a half-crocodile man in the sewers." This time he could see Queen's face pale with every word he said. "Do you need me to prove myself further?"

It took the man a moment before he swore, "Jesus, it really is you. How are you here? I mean, we all thought you were dead for real! What, did you decided to go on an extended holiday or something?"

"Short story, time travel," he grunted back.

"Oh. Of course, time travel. Couldn't be anything else."

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way," Ra's interrupted, his voice demanding everyone's undivided attention. "We are all here to see that Superman and his Regime are overthrown. For those of you who are unaware, there was an attack in the early hours of day, which resulted in the annihilation of the Kryptonian's army, the loss of several lieutenants, and the destruction of the Watchtower. The Regime is currently at their lowest point in years."

"So it's true," Queen murmured as he straightened himself out in his chair, leaning forward so that his arms could rest on the table. He then looked to Batwoman. "And you mentioned someone having plans on how to take out the rest of them, right?"

"That is correct," Ra's answered for her. "The one you call Batman is in possession of those plans."

"I can confirm countermeasures on at least four members," Batman acknowledged. "Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl. Plans for the others are currently in progress."

"I thought you said there were plans for all of them," Queen accused Batwoman.

"I created the original plans before the founding of the Justice League," Batman was quick to reply. "And I continued to make them right until my disappearance. The heroes that appeared after that are unknown to me, and thus do not have countermeasures."

Queen stared at him before slowly nodding his head. "I guess that makes sense." He then sighed. "So that leaves Cyborg, Shazam, Aquaman, and Enchantress to deal with."

"I have intelligence on those members," Ra's said then. "I believe between the Detective and myself, we can come up with countermeasures to neutralize them as well."

"That's great," Holt responded. "But we're still at an advantage. There's only five of us and a minimum of eight members of the Regime. We need more people for an operation like this."

"Or at the very least some damn good weapons," Queen added.

"Which brings us to our next order of business," the Demon's Head stated. "Before we can make our move against the Regime, there are two objectives that must be completed. One involves one of the company's responsible for the pills known as 5-U-93-R. I have managed to discover one of their factories belongs to Stagg Industries. We need to procure some of these pills for our own forces.

"The second objective involves an ancient artifact known as the Scarab. Our intel indicates that the late-Ted Kord had been in pursuit of this artifact up until his death. I have done some intensive research on this scarab and I believe that if we were to obtain it, it would assist in our battles with Shazam, or Enchantress."

"So, we're either stealing more green pills, or looking for some magical bug," Queen summed up, once again leaning back in his chair, rubbing a hand beneath his chin. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I call dibs on the pills."

"I'll go with you," Batwoman spoke up then. "It'd be best if we all had some backup on this."

"Which leaves me and Batman to find the Scarab," Holt said as he turned to face the vigilante. "How do you want to go about this?"

"Searching the area where Kord was killed will be necessary," Batman replied. "According to his file, that was in El Paso, Texas, correct?"

Ra's nodded. "Correct, Detective."

"So we're both heading to Texas," Holt said.

Batman shook his head. "No, I need you to examine Kord's body. See if you can't find some evidence he had this Scarab on his person."

"Uh, excuse me?" Queen interjected then. "Ted's body is being held at the Hall of Justice, like all of the people the Regime's killed. They're kinda sick that way. You want Mr. T here to break into the Hall, do...I don't know, an autopsy on Ted, and get out without anyone knowing he's been there?"

Batman, Batwoman, and Ra's all glanced to each other before they looked at the archer. "That's right," the Dark Knight answered for them.

Queen looked between the three, blinking his eyes in disbelief before realizing they weren't joking. He then sagged his shoulders in surrender. "Oh, well, I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page."

"Are you sure I can do something like that?" Holt questioned then, causing everyone to look to him. "Look, I want to help, but I don't want to get killed doing it."

"I have the utmost faith in you that you can," Batman told him. "You have all the necessary skills to do this—use them."

"All...alright."

"Which leaves me and Queen," Batwoman stated then. "Where is this Stagg factory?"

"Fortunately, not as far as El Paso," Ra's answered her. "They have a facility in New York. If you need transportation, I can provide that for you."

"We'll need it," Queen spoke up. "My Arrowmobile is still wrecked from the time Green Lantern tried to smash it with a giant hammer." He looked wistful at that. "Not one of my better days," he admitted.

"Next question," Holt said, trying to steer the conversation back on topic. "How long do we have to complete our missions?"

"Tomorrow night," Ra's informed them. "The longer we wait to strike is time for the Regime to rebuild their defenses. We have a short timetable before we must attack. As for you, Mr. Holt, I recommend completing your portion tonight. Most of the Regime will be away from the Hall, leaving one, perhaps two Regime members." Upon seeing Holt nod his acceptance, he continued, "Hopefully, these missions do not catch their attention, so they can continue to divert their energies elsewhere. Remember, our world is at stake and if we lose this, there will be no coming back."

All of them were silent after that, at least until Queen muttered, "Can't get more dramatic than that."

The Hall of Justice was one of the most guarded locations in the world. It had nothing to do with basic security so much as everything to do with who resided there.

The place Mr. Terrific was heading was technically their basement. Though he had never seen it personally, the place most enemy combatants were kept was called the Morgue. It was located under the east wing of the building.

And it was here the T-faced man was located. He had found a security terminal right outside the west wing entrance. A patrol had passed by a couple minutes ago, part of a seven minute patrol route. It was normally ten, but after the Red Lantern invasion, the Regime wasn't taking any chances. Were it not for the decimation of their soldier ranks, Terrific was pretty sure the patrol route would be five, or even three minutes.

The less than five minutes he had now were more than enough for him. For a place that had its security encrypted by a cyborg, it was actually pretty easy for him to hack through. He hadn't even needed to bring out his full array of hacking skills; instead he had taken out a small device he had designed long ago to bypass basic security systems. After loosening the computer panel and attacking a couple wires to his device, it had taken perhaps an entire minute before the encryption was broken. Just for a frame of reference, it took ten seconds for your standard home security.

To be honest, if the device took sixty seconds, he could've halved that time if he did a standard hack. However, he had another reason for using his device. Right now he was downloading a schematic of the Hall of Justice so that he could be in and out with as much efficiency as possible. Knowing the layout would help him keep out of sight of any patrols inside the building, not to mention the location of the security cameras, though they were less of a concern. Keeping his eyes on a small screen, he waited for a blueprint to appear.

And appear it did. Twenty seconds down, he had tops four minutes to fix his mess and get inside before the next patrol. With the thumb and index finger of his left hand, he took hold of a knob and began twisting it up and down, moving the blueprint up and down as he studied the diagram.

Hmm, it seemed there were multiple ways to get to the Morgue. The closest was five doors down from the west wing entrances. Hmmm…

He scrolled through the map again, eying the other entrances—and potential exits—before he was satisfied with what he saw. He then saved the blueprint to his device before he accessed a program he had been running since he initially hacked the system. The program in question automatically linked into the CCTV system and recorded a solid minute of surveillance footage. Tapping a few buttons, he usurped the security system's recording program and inserted the footage. Until he disabled it, the same sixty seconds would repeat on loop perpetually.

Disconnecting his hacking device from the terminal and fixing the panel, Terrific then opened the door and slipped in. By his watch, he had ninety seven seconds left—perfect.

Because it was night, the lights within the Hall were dim. There were patrols in here as well, ones that took longer to perform than the ones outside. Still, he had about three minutes to get to the door he wanted, or he needed to take cover somewhere. Doing his best to hurry while minimizing the sound of his footsteps against the marble flooring, Terrific mentally counted the doors until he reached the fifth one on his left. Grabbing the doorknob, he turned it and found it unlocked thankfully. Opening the door and slipping through it, he was careful to close it as quietly as he could.

The room Terrific found himself in was dark. Pulling out a flashlight, he turned it on and saw a small room, one with an elevator to his right, a door to a stairwell to his left. He went for the door, opening it and immediately going down the stairs. There was no point in using the elevator when it could potentially trap him, not to mention having to hack into the elevator's security camera and putting its recording on loop as well. He had some time, but not that much.

Reaching the bottom, Terrific opened the door and found what would was best characterized as a short hallway. It was short because it was only long enough for a set of elevators to cover one wall. To his left, the hallway opened up into a much larger room.

Dear God...

Terrific had heard of plenty of heroes being killed when they went up against the Regime, but this was insanity. An entire wall was dedicated to small, square freezer doors. About midway, a portion of the wall made ninety degree turns, leading to another room beyond that that was composed of these doors. There was no telling if all of these little freezer were occupied, but the very sight of it sickened him.

How could he have allowed this to go on?

Shaking himself out of those dark thoughts, Terrific quickly located a computer station and went right for it. Turning it on, he accessed the registry and put in a search for Ted Kord. It took a minute before he received results. B-2, he memorized.

Turning away from the computer he walked towards the freezer doors, finding the first section he had seen to be the A section. Moving down the wall until he reached the turn, he found the B section on the left side of the small There were three rows of these doors stretching as far as they could go until they reached the next wall's turn. It didn't take much imagination to figure that Kord's freezer would be one of three leftmost freezers and right in the middle. He was right as he saw the top one marked 1, the middle 2, and the bottom 3. It also helped that Kord's name was right in the middle of the door.

Unlocking it and pulling on the handle, the door swung open, revealing a rolling gurney. Grabbing it, he pulled it out, revealing the very blue, preserved body of Ted Kord. He was still dressed in his Blue Beatle suit—at least what was left of it; his body was covered with burns and other unhealed injuries—an honor Terrific hadn't been expecting. However, his utility belt and gadgets were missing, so it stood to reason they were kept somewhere else, probably an evidence locker, or armory.

However, he wouldn't go there unless he had to. Pulling out a hand-held scanner, he activated it and started the program to scan Kord's body. A green light flashed over Kord, forming a grid of squares all over him. A long beam of light then moved from foot to head, scanning the body. Once it was done, the light disappeared.

Patiently, Terrific waited. He wanted to make sure that if there was something to be found, he would see it immediately. If the results came back empty, then he'd have to go search for the armory, something he really, really didn't want to do. Sneaking in here was pretty easy, if not nerve-wracking; trying to get into a vault that housed all sorts of weapons and equipment would be a hell of a lot harder.

There was a sharp beep that alerted him to a finding. Looking at it, Terrific frowned. According to this, there was a radioactive signature detected. It wasn't your standard uranium, or plutonium; in fact, he would say it was pretty unique.

Apparently, Kord had found something.

One by one, Cyborg flexed his fingers. One by one, they curled into his palm until he had formed a fist. All at once they uncurled until they stood straight. Repeated, he made a fist with his hand, sometimes moving his fingers all at once, other times one at a time and with different patterns.

So far, his repairs were going as planned.

With the circuitry and inner mechanics fixed and a new coat of armor in place, Cyborg felt he was back in business. It had been the first thing he had done upon arriving at the Motor City plant. If something came up—which it would undoubtedly do since they were heroes—he needed to be back at one hundred percent.

Now that he was fully repaired, it was time to get to work. Getting up from the chair in front of his work bench, the mechanical man walked to a computer terminal and began accessing his Tornado project. Immediately, a schematic of a robotic body appeared. When he had last been working on it, he had been trying to iron out some bugs to its weapon systems. Because of his own tech, he could perform an infinite amount of simulations in a matter of seconds and each simulation had shown issues with that system. It could move, it could punch, it could kick, the operation systems were a go, yet he couldn't figure out why the weapons systems were still glitchy.

It was about time to figure out why.

An alarm went off in his head then, which caused him to roll his human eye. Right, it was time to do a quick check on the Hall of Justice. Wonder Woman was all sorts of paranoid right now and was demanding quite a bit out of their reduced ranks. He didn't blame her considering she personally saw two of their comrades die, one of whom was Raven...

Rachel…

Victor paused. They had come a long way since their fateful meeting at that truck stop. He had been a runaway from his father and the same with her. Part of him couldn't believe she was gone now; didn't want to believe it.

Damn it, Rachel, why did you have to die?

Cyborg's human face twisted with grief for a moment before he shook his head. No, he needed to get out of his melancholy. There was too much to do right now to get caught up in it and Superman needed him to restock their ranks. That's what Rachel would want.

For now, he needed to do his check. Accessing the Hall's security system, he began searching through all of the CCTV cameras, locating the patrols where he expected them to be.

Wait a second. Cyborg frowned. One of the cameras was acting odd. From one camera, he could see a patrol heading to the next sector, but then the next camera didn't pick them up. Accessing the camera, he quickly found its recording program, which caused him to scowl.

Someone had tampered with it.

"Cyborg to all points, come in," he immediately activated his comm.

There were a few seconds before he got multiple call ins. Unfortunately, they weren't the ones he wanted.

"Kinda busy, Cyborg," John grunted to him. "I'll call back later."

"You're gonna have to wait, buddy," Enchantress responded. "Getting kids out of a collapsed building at the moment, thank you."

"Can this wait?" Wonder Woman asked him.

Well, if they were going to be like that.

"Never mind, guys," Cyborg told them before shutting down his comm link. They were all clearly busy and he was the only that could put what he was doing on hold.

So be it.

Batman got the call as he stood in the middle of a vacant lot.

"Batman, it's Terrific," Mr. Terrific called to him.

"This is Batman, go," he answered.

"I've just left the Hall of Justice. I managed to do a scan on Ted Kord's body and found some sort of radioactive signature. I'm not positive on what caused it, but I'm certain that whatever it was has a long half-life considering it's still lingering on his body after so long."

Batman raised a hand to his gauntlet, hitting a button that changed the view of his lens. He was going for an ultraviolet setting, one that would pick up on the presence of bodily fluids. He got that and more as he detected a large area that glowed brightly before him. "Do you think Kord found the Scarab?" he asked as he kneeled down next to the spot.

"Possibly, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure of any relic that can leave a marking like this."

"Is there anyway you can send that signature to me?" the vigilante asked then. "I'll see if I can't find a corresponding signature here."

Here happened to be El Paso. After their group had split up from the Gotham Subway, he saw no reason not to head to El Paso to being his part of the investigation. He'd be here for at least the next day anyways if he was to keep up with the agreed upon timetable.

"I can do you one better," Terrific told him. "Thank God I brought my laptop with me. I'm currently accessing a satellite, a favorite of mine from Wayne Enterprises. I'm inputting the signature I've detected and seeing if I can't find any similar ones."

"Are you doing this in the Hall of Justice?" he was quick to ask. If so, Terrific needed to be quick about this. He was putting himself at great risk with every passing second he was there.

"No, left that place once I picked up on the signature. I'm in my car right now—and I've got results." A pause. "According to this, I've got a couple locations. One is some place in Central Mexico; the other is...let me zoom in here." Another pause. "I could be mistaken, but I've got a hit approximately at the Texas-Mexico border."

"Which means Kord definitely found something, most likely the Scarab," Batman surmised. "I'm going to send you my current coordinates. See if you can't triangulate with the possible site at the border."

"You got it, Batman."

The Dark Knight returned his attention to the ground before him. Assuming Kord had obtained the Scarab, he had died right here upon re-entering the country. Again, that was assuming that big fluorescent spot wasn't made recently. The ultraviolet lighting revealed fluids such as semen and blood and he knew the shape of a blood pool when he saw one.

Unfortunately, Batman had the feeling that whatever Kord had on his person had been taken as evidence by the Regime, so it was locked away somewhere else. If they were to get their hands on it, they were going to have to break in and get it.

That was just the sort of luck they had going for them.

To Guest: Something going down in El Paso, I'd imagine lol