A roar of vitriolic fury split the air of Aeaea. Half the Bestiamorphs who heard it froze. The other half started to panic and get as much distance as they could. One or two managed to keep their cool enough to help their mistress as she thrashed and clawed at her own face. Her usual olive skin was almost deathly pale, veins streaked with black. One of the thralls managed to hit her with a strong sedative, but her physiology was such that it barely made a dent. They did, however, manage to restrain her from doing any further damage to her own body, long enough for the pain to calm down.
Then that agony turned to pure rage.
The gateway to Mount Lycabettus activated just long enough for telekinetic tendrils to rip the station head through the portal. He gasped and hacked for air as her long nails tightened around his neck.
"What did you do to the essence?" she hissed.
He could barely speak for lack of air flow. "N-Nothing, mistress."
"Then explain—this!" she screamed.
Then smashed his head through a pewter bowl filled with opalescent dust—mixed with dark metal powder.
Circe gesticulated, looming over him menacingly. "It's tainted, you imbecile! And you sent it through the portal?!"
He scrambled for words. "W-We sifted it two-hundred times, mistress! Any impurities would've been detected!"
Her teeth bared. "Then clearly someone didn't enforce the last step of quality control: check—before—you send."
His eyes widened. "But no one could've—"
"Someone did, you useless bastard!" Circe groaned and stumbled back, feeling the pain return in dull throbs.
"You could've checked it yourself…"
The mutter barely reached her ringing ears, but it did reach. Her pale yellow eyes fixed on the failure cowering beneath her. He must've seen the fury there, because he immediately babbled and scooted back in terror.
He got all of two feet before her eyes flared with violet and a blast of kinetic energy splattered him across the landscape.
Circe sneered at the disgusting mess and turned to one of her attendants. "Find any trace of the interloper and check the other batch. I need to make a call."
Moments later, her phone was dialing and she was chugging an entire amphora of wine to deal with the pain.
"What?" came from the other end.
"You were to distract Wayne from our operations."
"That's still the plan."
Circe's teeth gritted. "Then explain how I was just poisoned from my own collection site. My thralls cannot harm me, nor can they deceive me. Someone infiltrated the Athens operation."
"…I guess I can step up the timetable."
She sneered. "You do that, Thomas."
Circe hung up on him and leaned back in her seat. She downed the rest of the wine, then immediately called for more.
…
"Dude, you have a college girlfriend? Major props!"
Jason and Damian glared at the speaker in tandem.
"You speak a word of this to anyone, Darren, and I'll make sure it's the last your tongue ever utters," Damian hissed.
"Dude, chill. She's like, seventeen, right? It's not that serious."
Jason kept frowning and rolled his eyes.
Darren leaned in and grinned. "Is she hot?"
Damian palmed his face and shoved him back in his seat. He exchanged a look with Jason and shook his head. They rocked with the motion of the bus's suspension, the movement further forcing Darren to stay in the seat behind them. He wasn't a bad kid, just a bit of an entitled doofus. And entirely too much of a socially-inept blabbermouth for Jason to talk about Kara around him. Which was unfortunate, because she was actually having a practicum at the museum they were headed to.
It was one of a few reasons Jason was excited about today, the other being what was going to happen when they got back to the manor. It had been a long, long time since he'd learned a new power—or at least a new application for an existing one. Honestly it had never even crossed his mind that he'd be fast enough to phase through solid objects, but it made sense. Although, he'd never seen or heard of his mom doing that, and she was probably faster than him. Eh, they'd figure it out at home.
Darren leaned back over the seat once the bus stabilized. "Hey Jason, don't take it the wrong way, man." He grinned and blushed slightly. "We got plenty of eye candy on the bus."
"Seriously," Gail said, "did they order our chaperones off a model catalogue or what?"
Jason groaned and faceplanted on the back of the seat in front of him. They were, of course, talking about Donna and Cassie, who had insisted on coming along on this field trip. Seriously, they were in public in their civvies, and Batman was reasonably sure Red Claw didn't know their identities. They'd be fine. Didn't those two have anything better to do?
"Unfortunately for you degenerates, they actually are over eighteen," Damian pointed out.
"Still eye candy, man." Darren grinned and leaned back, starry-eyed. "It's art appreciation."
Damian sighed and rolled his eyes, muttering, "Vapid idiot."
Jason was annoyed for a different reason—the same reason he got embarrassed when someone started hitting on his parents. Seriously, did everyone in his family have to be so distractingly attractive? It got so awkward.
Finally, the bus came to a stop in front of the Metropolis Museum of Art. Thirty kids filed out, escorted into different groups by Donna and Cassie. Donna stuck with his group, Cassie with Damian's.
"So," Donna said, "since we'll be splitting up, why don't we each take a different era as a group and meet up in 'modern art' in an hour?"
"Ah, save the worst for last, then," Cassie chuckled. "Rochambeau for first pick?"
They lined up and tapped their hands together. Cassie called paper, Donna scissors. Then Donna gave Jason a wink and took them to the "fashion through the ages" exhibit. Darren was, mercifully, taken in Damian's group, so Jason didn't have to deal with him fawning over Donna or—God forbid—Kara when they ran into her.
It didn't take long to spot her, despite her being so short. For reasons beyond his comprehension, Kara had her neck-length blonde hair done up in a tight bun. It wasn't a…bad look per se, just weird. Oh, who was he kidding? She could straight-up shave her head and still look gorgeous to him.
Donna waved to a man standing next to her. "Everyone, I'd like to introduce our guide, Mr. Pine, on loan from the Parsons School of Design, and his assistant, Ms. Clara Kent." She gave them a smile. "I'll leave them in your capable hands."
He gave them a blinding grin. "Good morning, everyone! Anyone here know where and when the concept of 'fashion' originated?"
…
Owing to Cassie's failed throw, Damian and his group were ushered through an exhibit of obscure sculptors from Eastern Europe. Some pieces were actually quite impressive. A relief of a life's course, from birth to wedding to death, with Slavic sayings etched into the borders of each scene. A collage of black-and-white and sepia-tinted photos from the first half of the 19th century made a papier-mâché-like outline of the Carpathian Mountains. A cross-section of the Berlin Wall made entirely from spent tank and rifle shells.
And through it all, Darren and Gail kept mooning over Cassie. This was getting ridiculous.
How Damian wished he could skip this report and go back home, or to Titans Tower. Since the incident at the Gotham Royal Hotel last year, he'd been trying to track down Deathstroke, especially since they discovered he'd been working for Janus that night. He'd even consulted with Grayson; Dick had known Slade a lot longer given their rivalry. Based on the evidence they'd found, it was agreed that Slade cut ties with the Decembrists after that night, went dark for the most part.
Until a few weeks ago, when a South American politician and his entire cabinet turned up dead. Not exactly unusual, given he'd been pissing off the cartels by making deals with two rivals, but something about the efficient methodology of the killings didn't jibe with typical cartel tactics. They liked to play with their food, send a message—at least with the head honcho of their victims. It wasn't until Nightwing ran into an ARGUS agent on the case that they got a little extra intel to fill in the missing pieces.
That politician had been working as a double agent for a third party trying to play the rival cartels against each other. At the moment of a critical deal for both sides, that third party hired Deathstroke to take him out, framing it such that each cartel thought the other was responsible. As it stood, a new jungle war was starting up, stretching across Colombia and Venezuela. Mercifully, it didn't seem like any civilian centers were being caught in the crossfire—yet.
But perhaps the most concerning bit of intel was Slade's new partner, codename: Ravager. She was a brutal fighter, but speaking as a trained assassin, Damian could see hesitation in her work, even remorse. ARGUS had a few theories on her identity, but given how similar her gear was to Deathstroke's—and how few people Slade trusted—Dick's money was on her being family. They just had to figure out which branch; for a homicidal maniac, Slade got around. Damian had been forced to abandon the case for the moment, given the escalating situation with Circe and Black Mask, but Dick had promised to let him know of any new developments.
"How familiar are you with this style?" Darren asked Cassie.
She glanced his way and shrugged. "Not very, to be honest. My area of expertise is more Classical than Slavic."
"You're studying it now?"
"Uh…no. My mom was kind of a historian in her own right. I got to shadow her as a kid."
"Sweet! I'd love to learn more about it sometime." Darren grinned. "Maybe on the ride back?"
Cassie glanced his way, looked him up and down. "You're…really interested in this, huh?"
He grinned wider and nodded emphatically. Damian rolled his eyes at the amused smirk on her lips. There was no way she hadn't noticed the heart eyes. Darren, on the other hand, was so thoroughly oblivious to her lack of interest that Damian almost felt secondhand embarrassment. Avoiding that awkwardness, he shunted his attention to the pieces themselves, trying to find something to focus on for his report. One tablet caught his attention.
It looked much older than the rest of the pieces in this exhibit, and was etched with Greek, Coptic, and cuneiform—the exact same typography as Keravnós. Damian stiffened and beelined for Cassie, snapping his fingers to get her attention.
"Excuse me. Guide. Would you take a look at this? You mentioned your expertise was Classical in nature."
Cassie frowned at his clipped tone but seemed to pick up on his tense vibe. When she saw the tablet, she had the same reaction he did.
"Well that's definitely worth a closer look," she said, injecting as much affability into her voice as possible.
Damian stuck a motion-sensitive mini-cam on the frame of its glass case and moved on with the rest of the class. The rest of the tour was spent glancing at his phone every thirty seconds. With everything going on, nothing about this felt like coincidence.
…
Officially, Kara was supposed to be shadowing the professor, but between her super-hearing and superspeed notes, this wasn't even a challenge to keep up with. Which left her with plenty of time to catch up with Jason. She kissed his cheek and hugged him, using the tour group to block them from Mr. Pine's sightline. Jason lit up like the sun.
His eyes darted wide open. "Oh, oh! There's someone I want you to meet."
He dashed off toward the group and talked to a short redhead, motioning to Kara. The pair strode over to her, Jason waving between them.
"Clara, I want you to meet my friend Lindsey—I've told you about her. Lindsey, this is my girlfriend Clara."
Kara stared at him. "Lindsey, as in the Lindsey?"
He nodded faintly.
Kara grinned and hugged her. "Your pictures really don't do you justice."
Lindsey laughed and hugged back. "And you look so different with glasses!"
Kara arched an eyebrow at Jason.
He shrugged. "Must've been from the Christmas party. Alfred was taking tons all night."
She nodded and pulled away from Lindsey. "Good to finally meet you."
"Same! So, wow, you got into Parsons at seventeen? Major props."
Kara smirked and waved at Jason. "Well, I helped design his mom's wedding dress, soooo that kinda helped."
Lindsey goggled at her. "How much do you want for a prom dress?"
Kara laughed.
Jason nudged Lindsey. "Hey, hey, you got a date and didn't tell me?"
She shrugged and subtly shifted in place. "No…"
He gave her a deadpan look.
"…maybe?"
Jason's eyes rolled. "Just tell me it's not Darren and we'll call it even."
"It's not Darren," she exclaimed, almost in relief. "I mean, he's not that much of an ass but…" her head shook rapidly, eyes wide, "nope. Just so much nope."
"On that we are agreed."
Kara glanced between them. "Darren?"
"Obnoxious rich kid with a womanizing streak."
Lindsey snorted a laugh. "Despite the fact that he's never even had a girlfriend."
"Yeah, he flirts, a lot, but never uh…never quite managed to close the deal with anyone."
"So an unsuccessful womanizer," Kara remarked.
"Oh exceedingly unsuccessful."
"Thank God," Lindsey groaned. "He'd be even more insufferable."
Kara giggled. "Well since I'll be stopping by the manor later—and you two actually do have an assignment to complete, shall we get back to the tour?"
"Yeah," Jason chuckled. "Hey Lin, you wanna come over after this? Mom and Dad would love to have you for dinner."
Lindsey smiled ruefully. "I wish I could, man, but I'm actually having family dinner with my parents—both sets."
Jason smiled gently and said nothing for a while. "I'm glad they're settling in."
"No one more than me, believe that."
"I do."
Kara stared at the side of his head, hearing his heartbeat quicken slightly. No one in this life ever forgot the first person they saved. She felt a smile rise unbidden and cuddled into his side. He jumped a bit, since she hadn't even been touching him before. He met her eyes, and her smile widened.
"What?" he asked.
Kara pressed her cheek into his shoulder. "Nothing. You're just sweet."
Jason put an arm around her. "Okay," he said, sounding almost confused.
She didn't notice Lindsey staring until she spoke.
"You guys are actually adorable," she said with a grin.
Kara chuckled and nuzzled into him. She nodded to the ongoing tour, and they moved to rejoin the group.
She leaned into Jason and whispered, "She's lovely."
He smiled and nodded. "I know. Doing my best to make sure it stays that way."
Kara's eyebrow arched. "How's that?"
"For one, making sure her parents don't fall back into old habits. Rehab's only as good as the new habits you make. I can't do that for them, buuut I can make sure their old vices aren't nearly as accessible."
"And if that happens to coincide with our campaign against Sionis…"
Jason grinned. "Exactly."
Kara followed the group through the exhibit, catching the occasional grin thrown her way from the professor.
"What's his deal?" Jason asked.
Kara glanced at him. "Oh, he knows about you."
Jason stared at her. "I thought we agreed to be discreet."
"No, you wanted to do that. We never agreed to anything. Besides, you told Lindsey."
"Because Lindsey's my friend and she understands consequences better than most."
"And he's one of the faculty most likely to get me an in with the industry for real-world experience."
"So? He doesn't need to know about your personal life for that."
Kara frowned a bit at his irritated tone. "It just came up in conversation. Wouldn't it be more suspect if we try to hide our relationship?"
Jason sighed. "It's just nobody's business. Look, I don't want to argue about this. I'm just worried about backlash on you."
"Which is why I think it would be better if we established we're together now, publicly, before I turn eighteen. I'm not talking about airplanes writing in the sky, Jace, but if we have it out in the open—"
"We'll have evidence of an existing relationship," he finished. Jason sighed and pinched his nose. "This is such arbitrary bullshit. What a headache."
"But there's a reason—"
"I know it's the law for a reason, but damn."
She gripped his hand a little tighter. "Yeah."
They rejoined the group without another word.
…
Hours passed with Damian glancing at his phone every so often. Considering it was a museum in the middle of the day, it was no surprise the camera's motion sensor kept constantly going off. Thus far, no suspicious characters had taken a look at the tablet. Darren was still sticking to Cassie like a burr, despite her lack of knowledge about the exhibit, but at least he was keeping a somewhat respectful distance. Damian took a note on something, then texted Jason.
[We found an exhibit item that doesn't belong—Mediterranean characters, too old to fit the exhibit and lacking its theme.]
A few moments passed before a response. [Slavic sculptures, right? Yeah that's a little weird]
[It's also the same typography as Keravnos, the lightning dagger. We're keeping an eye on it]
[Well, a lot of ancient writings from that region did have multiple translations, especially for legal stuff. Maybe not so weird?]
[Maybe]
[…you don't think it's coincidence]
[There's no such thing as coincidence for us.]
[Aight, I'll keep an eye out for Caephus]
Damian pocketed his phone and returned to his observations in time to see Darren beelining for him. He muscled the exasperated bracing off his face.
"Hey, Dami, this Cassie chick's amazing! You know her mom used to be a treasure hunter? Like a real life Tomb Raider!"
Damian restrained an eye-roll. "Imagine that."
"Right?! Man, y'know usually, high-pitched voices like that are like nails on a chalkboard, but I don't know…" He grinned, full flush. "I think I could listen to her talk for hours."
Seeing Darren distracted, Damian finally let his eyes roll in full form, along with the rest of his head and shoulders. His father was immeasurably wise, but there were times Damian questioned his good sense. What exactly was he supposed to learn from peers like this? At least the Titans had some redeeming qualities worth mentioning. The only thing he was learning from this lovesick idiot was how truly idiotic outward beauty could make an immature child. Not to mention his own brother's—what did they call it these days?—ah yes, simping over Supergirl.
Though, both had expressed genuine interest in the other's interests and goals, much like Bruce and Diana regularly interacted…
Damian pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. All this romance in the air was throttling him. He was self-aware enough to know that his own taste in women—or lack thereof—gave him little room to talk, but Damian was insistent, at least in the confines of his own mind, that he simply hadn't found the right woman yet (his old, brief crush on Stephanie notwithstanding). Besides, women distracted from the mission, essentially the only thing that gave his life stimulation or purpose.
Just looking at the absolute dumpster fire that was his father's love life up until Diana was enough to deter him from any entanglements. An endless litany of girlfriends who turned up greedy, dense, self-absorbed, and/or criminals—or just straight-up dead. No thanks.
Damian finished polishing off his notes on the exhibit right as they came to the reunion portion of the tour: modern art.
His eyes met Jason's right as they came to the entrance. His brother mimed a very convincing "explosive decompression" shortly before the bus driver jogged onto the scene and jerked his thumb behind him.
"Sorry, guys," he said, "looks like the weather's turning crappy goin' back, so the school wants us to leave early."
Damian held back a sigh of relief. Most of the rest of the group didn't have his restraint.
The museum tour guide with Damian's group grinned. "Well, that's too bad, but hey—something to look forward to for next time!"
Damian saw Jason cross his fingers and stare at the ceiling. Cassie held back a snort.
"Hey," Jason said, "see you at home?"
Kara grinned. "Soon as I'm done with this report."
"Sweet." He turned to Lindsey. "Hey, have fun with your parents!"
"Bryce is making his mom's chicken alfredo," Lindsey answered with a grin. "Bet even Alfred couldn't replicate that."
Damian scoffed and smirked. "You would lose that bet. Badly."
Jason fist-bumped him. "See you, Clara."
He hugged his girlfriend and hesitated for a moment, then decided to go for it and smooched her outright. Damian restrained a gag. The rest of the class made a collective teasing cheer. Jason was full blush the whole way back to the bus, but he never stopped smiling.
…
Jason wasn't looking forward to the report he'd have to write when they got home, but at least organizing his notes gave him something to distract from Darren mooning over Cassie. Strangely enough, the fashion exhibit had been less helpful for getting school project ideas than it had for personal projects. For a while now, Jason had started feeling like his suit was looking a little drab, especially compared to the company he now kept. Working with other heroes, especially Supergirl and Blue Lantern, had gotten him thinking he needed a bit more blue in his palette.
He was sketching up rudimentary designs for a new wings insignia when the bus took a sudden turn, shoving him against the wall. Jason frowned and looked around for Donna and Cassie. The former was pushing her way to the driver.
"Hey, something wro—"
A bolt of lightning lanced through the door and caught Donna at the waist. Jason leapt from his seat in tandem with Damian. Both regretted it in short order when they saw Léon Dechamps standing directly in the bus's path. In the two seconds it took to reach him, he morphed into full chimera form and reared up on his hindlegs. The lion's head roared deafeningly, almost enough to drown out the passengers' screams. Jason had just enough time to pin Damian to the floor before Dechamps' forepaws slammed the front of the bus.
Jason felt the whole bus lift and took a sharp breath as the world slowed to a crawl. Most of the back rows' occupants were ejected from their seats—if hitting the ceiling at this speed didn't hurt, the fall back down would. And it was looking more and more like the bus was going to flip end-over-end. Reluctantly, he let Damian go. The upward momentum would keep him pinned to the floor for now. Jason leapt for the rearmost row as he saw a flicker of blonde hair moving at superspeed.
Thanks to Bruce's safety concerns, the bus had seatbelts built in, not that they saw much use. Thanks to his foresight, securing the others was a matter of yanking them into their seats and buckling them in. By the time the bus was fully airborne, Jason had taken care of the back four rows, Cassie the forward six. He didn't see Donna anywhere. A glance out the window gave him a good look at Dechamps.
He looked bigger than he had in Gotham. A lot bigger. Almost the size of a bus himself.
So, add size manipulation to his list of powers.
Jason kept moving, catching Darren as the bus hit the middle of its rotation. He tied him down just in time to see Damian lift off the floor. A glance confirmed that Cassie took care of the rest. So he tackled Damian to the ceiling and braced for impact. The concussion rattled him hard, but it was nothing he hadn't withstood before. The others weren't so lucky. Some had caught a face full of glass, others were already showing signs of whiplash. One girl had gotten her leg caught under a seat and broken it on impact.
There was no sign of the bus driver.
A look down told Jason Damian was okay, if a bit rattled. They groaned their way upright.
"You okay?" Jason asked.
He nodded, hand over his ear.
"Tinnitus?"
Damian nodded. "On one side, yeah."
The bus had flipped upside-down, so everyone was hanging precariously off the ceiling.
"Is everyone okay?!" Cassie shouted. "Come on, check in!"
"We're good!" Jason called back. "Everyone else, though…"
Cassie looked around, mouthing, "Donna?"
Jason shrugged and shook his head.
Her eyes widened when she glanced out the front windshield. "Oh god…start getting everyone down! He's coming!"
Jason looked back and saw Dechamps stalking toward the bus. He could hear the snake-head hissing at them. Cassie bolted for the front of the bus and smashed through the windshield. In less than a second, she'd ditched her slacks and blouse for the red-gold shirt and blue tights underneath. Her Lasso of Lightning twirled from her quickly discarded bag.
"Holy shit—holy shit, she's Wonder Girl!"
Jason felt all the blood drain from his face as he whirled around to see Darren staring at Cassie. He'd apparently taken the impact the best, since he was barely ruffled and the first to disengage his seatbelt.
Wonder Girl slammed into the front of the bus, hard enough to cave in the frame even further. Her head snapped toward them. "Get the others and run!"
Dust and debris started swirling around the bus, wind whipping up into a maelstrom of metal shards and broken glass. Jason ran for the nearest benches, ripping off belts while Damian and Darren did the same. Darren held up the girl with the broken leg, acting as a human crutch. Damian grabbed the bus medical kit and started pulling people toward the back hatch. Jason held the rear, pulling Lindsey to her feet and keeping an eye out for Caephus. Donna still hadn't shown up.
When no one was looking, he put on his earpiece and hit the panic button on his watch. Neither responded with anything but static—the same jamming effect as that day in Bialya. But they'd designed this new tech to counteract it…unless Caephus was creating some kind of electromagnetic isolation field. Jason grit his teeth and pushed Lindsey through the hatch, following Damian and Darren toward a nearby chain-link fence with a gate. As he looked past it, he saw a building with a sign: Shady Cove Water Treatment.
"Stand back!" Damian shouted, then kicked in the gate hard enough to shear through the padlock. "Go, go!"
The whole field trip ran for the treatment plant. A thundering boom brieflydrew their attention back to the road in time to see Cassie slammed into the side of the bus, almost hard enough to crack it in half. Dechamps' snake tail spewed a thick jet of acidic poison, melting through the vehicle as she dashed toward him in zigzags. A lion paw swiped at her face, caught in her lasso and used as an anchor to pull his forelegs out from under him.
The goat head bleated vilely, circles of runic magic forming at the opening of its mouth. Its attention was all on Cassie—until the snake tail spotted the escaping group, and the goat head whirled to face them. A distorted, thundering bleat was their only warning before the ground opened up beneath them and thirty kids fell into the abyss.
…
[Alert: SOS: Jason Wayne, Damian Wayne]
Bruce stared at the phone, feeling his blood run cold.
"Are we boring you, Mr. Wayne?"
He sent a thinly veiled glare at Simon Stagg, who was being irritatingly stubborn over a zoning dispute for the new WayneTech Automated Transport System hub.
The ATS was a new development in unmanned transport and AI guidance. An array of proprietary state-of-the-art VR rigs allowed Wayne Enterprises' truckers a full haptic interface with a new fleet of unmanned big rigs. Using this, traditional interstate trucking would be replaced with a system that allowed the drivers to control their vehicles as if they were there in person, but without any of the physical risks. At the first sign of fatigue, a redundant AI guidance system would take over. The self-driving program was relatively basic, but it really only needed to get the vehicle somewhere safe to park. Since Wayne Enterprises operated its own GPS satellites, the ATS was a closed system with complete vertical integration and no third-party access—virtually unhackable. This particular trait was critical; Bruce and Lucius had been workshopping this idea for years, since a series of transport robberies put a lot of kryptonite on the black market.
The hub also had a first response medical staff on hand to monitor driver health and deal with any immediate issues pertaining to long sedentary work, then hand them off to EMS if necessary. Drivers would be able to work their shift and go home without long days or weeks away from family.
The whole purpose of this meeting was to secure the roads in and out of the hub for the system's grand opening in three weeks. Unfortunately, Stagg Industries occupied a few warehouses in the vicinity, and their lawyers were arguing that the new hub would drastically increase traffic in the area—and with it the risk of injury to their workers. They neglected to mention that the warehouses in question were rarely used. Bruce suspected that Stagg was putting pressure on them to license the ATS for his own freight. That was never going to happen.
"Apologies, Mr. Stagg," Bruce replied. "I'm afraid a family emergency just came up. We'll have to postpone this meeting for another day." He waved to Alistair Holt and Gianna Dendra, his attending legal counsel. "Unless you're content to discuss this with my legal team."
The way Stagg paled sent a flicker of malevolent joy through Bruce. Stagg was banking (erroneously) on the vapid socialite Bruce Wayne being easily manipulated into a settlement. He knew as well as Stagg that Holt and Dendra were some of the nastiest legal sharks money could buy. Without Bruce holding their leash, they'd tear him apart.
Stagg cleared his throat. "No, no, of course. Family comes first. Hope it all works out."
As expected.
Bruce smiled. "I appreciate your understanding."
He left the boardroom without another word and sprinted for the executive elevator. Inputting his fingerprint into a hidden scanner, Bruce braced himself as the elevator shot into the sub-basement, where the Batcycle was waiting for him. He powered up a nearby batcomputer as he suited up.
"Cass, did you see the alert?"
"Already on my way to their last known," she replied.
"I'll meet you there. Have you tried contacting Troy or Sandsmark?"
"Yeah, I'm getting nothing. And the signal from Jason and Damian is spotty at best."
Batman scowled as he climbed on the bike and felt it roar to life. "Then it's safe to assume Circe's made her next move. Do you have the shield?"
"Sitting on my belt now."
"Good."
Jason kept his sword with him at all times now, but he'd left his shield with the suit in case someone else needed a little anti-magic. Considering how much magic they were running into these days, Batman was considering adding a layer of Nth-metal to his own gauntlets. For now, all he could do was gun the engine and hope they would get there in time.
…
A cough. A gag. The acrid taste of purifying chemicals and sewage in the air.
All this and more assaulted Damian's senses as he blindly clawed his way through the dust and debris. Everything tilted suddenly, and the next thing he knew, he was tumbling over a pile of shattered concrete and bent rebar. Fortunately, he didn't catch any jagged edges on the way down. When he finally stopped, it was on flat concrete with dim chemical lighting. The sound of rushing water reached him from somewhere close by. It was another ten seconds before he managed to lift his head enough to get a good look at the surroundings.
At first glance, he knew it was absolutely a sewage tunnel. A second glance revealed he was not alone. Damian crawled toward the nearest silhouette on the ground and shifted a thin panel of concrete off Gail. He checked her pulse and immediate vitals. Far as he could tell, nothing was leaking or broken. Just unconscious, he guessed. A small trickle of mostly-dried blood streaked past her temple.
"Damian? Yo!"
His head whipped around. "Darren!" A cough. "Over here!"
Darren peeked into view a moment later, barely visible through the cloud of dust, along with the injured girl he was still carrying. More silhouettes soon joined him—though far less than Damian had expected.
"Jason! Lindsey!" He dashed to Darren. "Where are the others?"
Darren coughed and shrugged. "I don't know, man. When everything collapsed, I think I blacked out or something. Only ten of us here." His eyes widened. "Y-You don't think…"
He immediately cast a horrified look at the pile of rubble and hit his panic button again while rifling through his pockets for the new earpiece. His cell wouldn't get reception this far down, but their earpieces might be able to connect to each other.
"Jason! Jason, can you hear me?!"
Static answered him for a deafening ten seconds.
"Dami? You're okay!"
"I have Darren and Gail here, and nine others. You?"
"Yeah, I've got the rest. Couple bumps and bruises, but I think we're all okay to keep moving. Any idea how far down we are?"
"None. What do you see on your end?"
"Just—" a cough, "—lots of nondescript tunnels, running water, no legible markings anywhere."
Damian checked a compass he kept in his jacket. "I have northbound and eastbound tunnels here. They're the only ways out that aren't blocked."
"I have north-south, a straight junction."
"Then let's head north and see if we can link up. I don't know how long those two can hold them off up top, and they were definitely aiming for us."
"Agreed. Get movin', man."
"Your phone works down here?" Gail asked weakly.
Damian frowned and checked her breathing. "No. Father built us a closed system to communicate in case we ever got kidnapped or separated."
Gail chuckled weakly. "I'd call it paranoia, but uh…"
She waved to indicate their current situation.
That got a small smile out of Damian. "Are you okay to walk?"
"Think so. Gimme a hand?"
He nodded and helped her stand up, steadying her when she swayed a bit. Damian handed Gail off to Ash, who looked pale but a lot steadier on her feet.
"Everyone listen up!" he shouted. "Jason is with the rest of the group somewhere else in these tunnels. We're heading down this tunnel to see if they connect. Once we link up with the others, then we can find a way out. Pair up and stick close to each other. We drilled for this, remember?"
A ragged chorus of affirmative responses answered.
"All right. Let's move."
…
Jason took a long look at the ceiling where they'd dropped in. As ever, he wondered how such a large opening could be completely filled in addition to the rubble at the bottom. Considering how much rubble there actually was, he began to realize they must've fallen several stories and accumulated as much concrete and rebar on the way down. Which begged the question—how the hell did everyone reach the bottom in one piece? Jason had subtly moved a few of the riskier ones midair, but the very fact that nobody had been buried alive was nothing short of a miracle.
Or perhaps the spell Dechamps had used was intended to open a path instead of simply inflicting wanton destruction. If that was the case, then these tunnels weren't coincidence, but intention. Jason tried not to shiver at the thought of what else might be waiting for them. He kept a tight grip on the sword in his pocket.
The group was finally on its feet, moving north through a wider section of tunnel with a spillway past a railing on their right. Everything was quiet save the quiet rush of water. On his left, Jason saw Lindsey's eyes dart wide open as she rushed to his side some distance from the main group.
"Lin? What's up?"
She chewed her lower lip, breathing rapidly. "Do…do you think this is because of me?"
Jason blinked hard. "What? Why would you think that?"
Lindsey bit down harder, eyeing him uncertainly. She sighed. "I'm not supposed to talk about this, but…remember Tammany Iles?"
He stiffened. "Of course."
"Um…apparently he's wrapped up in some kind of international smuggling thing or something like that, so the feds got involved and uh…"
From the way Lindsey trailed off, this was something extremely sensitive. The pieces fell into place a moment later.
"You're a key witness," Jason said softly.
She nodded.
He exhaled hard. "I don't know, Lin, but I mean we're dealing with monsters and magic, not some second-rate poison pusher."
"Yeah. Yeah okay."
They were silent a while.
"I never thanked you."
Jason glanced at her. "For what?"
She smiled faintly. "Sending Knight after me."
The blood froze in Jason's veins. "What?"
Lindsey gave him a look. "Jason. Steph told you I went missing, then a few days later, you show up at the Tellers' and ask about me, saying you have 'resources' just a few hours before he and Robin show up to save us." She leaned in slightly. "I'm not an idiot."
He just stared at her, mind blanking out utterly.
"I mean, it makes so much sense. You're a Wayne, one of the most powerful families in the world, of course you have some crazy connections." She grinned and lowered her voice. "I just never thought you'd have one to someone who works with Batman."
Jason's lips pressed into a thin line. "Right."
She finally looked up to see the anxious expression on his face. "I'm not gonna tell anyone. You're pretty much the only reason we got out of Crime Alley. I just…want you to know how grateful I am." Her lips pursed. "Just in case…"
"Hey." He gripped her shoulder. "Nothing is gonna happen to you. By now, my dad should know something's wrong." He held up his wrist. "This watch has a built-in panic button. Damian has one just like it."
"I thought we weren't getting any signal."
"No cell signal, yeah, but this uses high-frequency pulse tech that links directly to WayneTech satellites. If we get even a millisecond of signal out, he'll know something's up. Then it's just a matter of time before the police or the Justice League show, especially with those two up there. They're probably already calling for backup."
"Yeah," said someone else in the group, "why do we have two supers for chaperones?"
Jason froze, mind racing for an answer. He exchanged a glance with Lindsey. Immediately, inspiration struck.
"So, my dad—my whole family really—gets a lot of death threats. Y'know, rich, powerful, kinda comes with the territory, so we get a little numb to it after a while. I mean, I got kidnapped last year, don't know if you guys saw that in the news."
A few had.
"But this time around, there was a threat specifically directed at Gotham Academy, probably because my family helped build it. Well, Dad takes threats like that very seriously, so he got in touch with some of his business partners. You guys know Steel, the superhero? John Henry Irons? Well, he runs Ironworks, it's a tech-construction company Wayne Enterprises subcontracts with. So my dad reached out to him and asked for a favor, y'know see if any of his League buddies could look into this."
"Wait, so you knew our chaperones were Leaguers?" someone else asked—Frazier, he thought.
"Titans, actually," he corrected, "and yeah, I knew we had an escort."
A ripple of unease carried through the crown as they all turned to him in a panicked frenzy.
"Why didn't anyone tell us?"
"Why didn't they cancel the trip?!"
"What are we gonna do?!"
One girl, a tall, muscular blonde, grabbed Jason by the lapels and shoved him against the railing. Lindsey shouted at her and pulled uselessly. Jason stared at her without a bit of concern, only surprise that quickly turned to annoyance.
"This is your fault!" she yelled. "If it wasn't for your family—"
"If it wasn't for my family, you wouldn't be here," he interrupted. His eyes narrowed as her identity flashed through his head. "And I mean that in more ways than one, Willa."
She froze and stared at him wide-eyed, slowly letting him up. Like Lindsey, Willa was a scholarship student from Park Row. Unlike Lindsey, she had a record—a history of violence. Her academic performance and a downtick in that behavior in recent months were what granted her a chance to turn things around at Gotham Academy. Diana had had a personal hand in granting her application, seeing potential as only an Amazon could. Only time would tell where that potential led.
Jason straightened up and dusted himself off. "If it wasn't for my family getting help, we'd already be dead. So have a little courage and let's keep moving. We shouldn't be far from the next junction."
Slowly, the group got moving again, letting Jason take the lead. Lindsey stayed at his side, eyeing the others with unease. He smiled a little, grateful for the support. Then a faint hissing echoed through the tunnel that was barely audible over the rushing water. Behind him, the others started coughing, prompting him to glance back and sweep the dark tunnel for signs of danger. An overhead pipe rippled faintly as something leaked from a joint. Jason shoved Lindsey behind him and coughed twice before he felt an intense itch in the back of his throat and saw the edges of his vision turn fisheyed. He was already grasping for an emergency rebreather.
It wasn't until he looked up to see everyone staring at him with metallic golden eyes that he realized what was happening.
Immediately, Jason slapped the rebreather between Lindsey's lips and pinched her nose closed. The panic in her eyes subsided when she sucked in through the breather—only to return a moment later when everyone else started screaming and thrashing. Frazier fell down and covered his face, crawling backward into a corner. Two girls covered their…well their already-covered bits and shrieked at the top of their lungs as they ran away. Jason flinched and shrank back as their golden eyes intensified—then froze when their forms started morphing.
Cheetah, Bane, Deathstroke.
Janus.
He scowled and reached into a different pocket, immediately jabbing himself with an autoinjector. Moments later, the hallucinations faded, and he was left with a crowd of terrified teens just seconds from tearing each other apart. He glanced at Lindsey. From her lack of obvious psychosis, it seemed he'd gotten to her in time. His gaze went back to the pipe.
"We gotta block that pipe!"
Lindsey looked at him with frightened eyes and nodded.
Willa tackled a smaller boy and started pounding his face.
"Follow the pipe and look for a shutoff valve!" he yelled. "I got this!"
Jason ran toward the scuffle and trapped her arms in full nelson, slowly wrenching her back despite her thrashing.
"You won't get me too!" she screamed desperately. "You can't get me too!"
"Willa, listen! I don't know if you can understand—"
She stepped on his foot hard, stomping her heel into his instep. It would've made anyone else let go immediately. Jason tripped her instead, holding her down as gently as he could.
"Dammit, don't make me—"
A boot came up between his legs.
Jason headbutted her unconscious before the pain could register. A few moments later and it still didn't. He heaved a sigh of relief. The hissing calmed, then vanished entirely.
"I got it!"
Jason looked up to see Lindsey peeking around the corner, grinning hopefully. He gave her a thumbs-up, then slowly approached the shrieking girls who were having the in-class-naked waking nightmare.
"What was that injection?" Lindsey asked while she checked on a catatonic freshman.
"Antidote. Wayne Enterprises funds a research and containment center for meta-criminals and other abnormalities. Part of that threat I mentioned earlier was information that the facility was raided." He shot her a worried look and nodded to the ceiling. "Whoever did it broke out one of the guys up there and stole a bunch of Scarecrow toxin. Dad gave us breathers and samples of the antidote just in case."
"You have any more?"
His head shook. "Just the one." He tapped his earpiece. "Damian, keep your breather and injector handy. We just got hit with a dose of fear toxin. Not too much, so the effects are pretty mild I think, but be careful."
"Got it," he answered a few seconds later. "Nothing on our end yet."
"Don't worry about meeting up," he said while holding the two girls in place. "Just get 'em topside before that changes."
"Sure you don't need help?"
Both girls smacked him on each cheek in their induced mortification.
Jason snorted. "What I don't need is more cats to herd."
He heard the smirk in Damian's voice. "Don't have too much fun."
Damian terminated the link before he could respond.
Over in the corner, Frazier started stripping in a panic.
"Oh, for the love of—"
…
Damian immediately whirled toward the others. "The other group ran into trouble! We need to pick up the pace!"
"What trouble?" Gail asked tensely.
"Gas leak. It's slowing them down. We need to get topside and call for paramedics."
Neither wholly true nor false. It would get them moving. And it did until they reached a T-junction. To their left, if he guessed correctly, was a passage that would take them to Jason's group. Unfortunately, it was also collapsed. Their right-hand path wasn't much better: a narrow tunnel blocked by a solid iron grate that swung open in their direction. Damian used his phone as a flashlight, looking for any rusted sections or weak points. Nothing was substantial enough to permit them access, and the one point that actually was highly corroded was the locking mechanism.
Damian cursed sharply.
"What's up?" Darren asked.
"There's no way through without a cutting torch or explosives." He glanced at the walls. "And I don't think the latter would help the stability of this place."
Darren's lips pursed tightly as he looked back at the group. "Well we gotta think of something, man." He nodded to the girl with the broken leg. "Katie's not lookin' so good."
And she wasn't. A mere glance revealed a growing shade of purple where Ash was inspecting the limb. They'd found a splint in the medical kit and patched it up as best they could, but considering the force of the crash, there was no way of knowing how extensive the damage was. She needed medical attention fast.
"Any ideas?" Damian asked.
Darren stared at him with anxiety in his eyes. "Yeah, I got one. But you gotta promise you're not gonna tell the school. Or your dad."
Damian eyed him suspiciously. "I can't promise that, only to present you in a favorable light."
He shifted uncomfortably and sighed hard. "Yeah, okay."
From his coat, Darren pulled out an inhaler with no prescription markings or other indicators. He breathed out, then brought it to his lips and puffed, inhaling deeply. Within seconds, the veins on his forehead and hands flared with a faint paleness. Damian's eyes widened—that was a little too familiar. Darren pocketed the inhaler and turned to the grate, breathing heavily. His hands curled into tight fists for a moment, then opened to wrap around the hinges. He grunted and growled, body trembling as he pulled with everything he had.
Within seconds, the metal started to give, whining faintly and bending ever-so-gradually until—
Snap!
The bolts holding the hinges together sheared in half, leaving only the rusted lock to hold the door up. It too gave way soon after, clattering to the concrete with a loud clang. The rest of the group stared at him dumbstruck.
Damian took charge. "Get them up! We need to keep moving!"
Slowly, they obeyed, eyeing Darren with a mix of anxiety and hope. Halfway to the next junction, the water on their right started to bubble and churn. Damian motioned for them to keep quiet and move past as he kept watch on it. The disturbance calmed and vanished moments later. He suspected it was an exchange pipe.
"Cassie!"
Darren's excited cry drew his attention back to the front.
There she was, caked in dirt and covered in small cuts and bruises. Damian's jaw tightened. Hippolyta clearly hadn't been exaggerating Dechamps' strength.
"I know the way out," she said. "You need to follow close and stay quiet. We're not alone down here."
The whole class rallied behind her, Damian staying at the rear to watch their backs. Thus, he had no angle to see the churning phenomenon start up ahead of them or time to warn Cassie.
In a flash too fast for his eyes to track, Damian saw Cassie struck with a bolt of azure lightning coming from the water. Another came at her, absorbed by her bracelets.
"Go!" she screamed over the deafening booms of thunder, standing between them and the threat.
One arm came up to block another lightning strike while the other dipped to her hip and twirled the Lasso of Lightning into action. It absorbed the next three arcs of electricity before she snapped it toward the water and dispersed all its energy at once. The tunnel fell silent. Cassie wound her lasso around her arm, taking a breather.
That is, until the Lasso went completely taut.
Suddenly, Cassie was pulled six feet toward the edge, her boots skidding on the water-slick concrete. She dug her heels in and pulled with both arms. The moment the end of her lasso left the water, she lashed out at something wriggling through its coils. Her blow met empty air that quickly turned into very different coils. A gigantic moray eel with pale gray skin wrapped around her entire body, its head hissing in her face as she gripped the Lasso tighter. The cable's surface glowed with golden arcs of electricity that danced across their shared form.
She was the daughter of Zeus—she could take her own current, but hopefully—
The eel…smiled?
Across its body, a network of veins stirred and flared with azure light. Before Damian's eyes, it devoured every arc of lightning, visibly growing in size and tightening its grip around Cassie. Then its jaw unhinged, and a cluster of electric tongues lashed from the depths of its throat, striking her in the chest and face as she thrashed in agony.
"Cassie!" Darren screamed, running straight at her.
"Stay back!" Damian warned.
If this was making her screech like that, the energy would disintegrate him, juiced up or not. The blast stopped at last, and Cassie sagged in his grip. The eel gave the rest of the group a once-over, lingering on Damian for a long moment. Then its hissing breath turned into a voice—a familiar voice.
"Be ssseeing you," Caephus hissed.
Then his elongated tail wrapped around the railing and hurled both of them into the water.
AN: We are rapidly approaching the end of Act II and the culmination of the Network's machinations. Soon, it'll be time to bring some old faces back and maybe say hello to a new one. Not much else to say about this chapter besides it being primarily setup for the escalating climax of Act II. Fairly sure that's part of the reason it took so long to write—lots of threads to map out and tie together.
Until next time.
Formatting notes:
– Internal Thoughts/Flashback
– "Super-Hearing/Surveillance"
– Telepathy/Divine Speech
– "{Translation}"
– [Text Message]