The Dark Knight Chronicles; My Brother, the Renegade – My Father, the Batman –

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Chapter 11: Brick Red Wall

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Mainly based on the hyper – awesome song by the Used that came off of their semi new his from 23. My god, no loss of those high vocals. Lucky – I keep getting rougher and lower with my post-surgical reflux but I do operatic – show tunes. Not rock.

Anyway…. next one is a description of what Dick and Kate Kane actually know about each other's reps. Slade isn't a fan of being the one on the sidelines and a guest finds the heroes off guard to enact its vengeance further over the fam.

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His rooftop hike was only the tip. No one but Slade?

Of course, Dick hissed and nearly let go as the face of a black cap wearing idiot was the one thing on a rappel line that a vigilante in this city COULD spot. He looked down. Seeing light scatter, he clutched his skull as an arm swopped out over the other scarlet and black ensemble.

"Hold on, I gotcha." She had the voice of someone not at all un- amused by their position. She'd been told to catch the rabbit, but all she found was one sweet little fox out on the wrong roof.

His eyes were masked below the safety of the cap. His hair was shoulder length and plastered to his neck, yet she saw a glimmer in them.

"Stay back…. i don't know what you want, but please. Before –

"I don't appreciate you running away like that, apprentice." A good cover, Dick dropped to the roof as the girl in …. oh, now he saw her.

A bat – woman. A theme that only belonged to Babs once yet she'd forsaken it – even before the Joker went to attack her as he had.

She glared over her shoulder under the cowl at the merc, in full attire as someone that struck a gong to her memory of another man. A killer, named Kane.

"You look like you've just caught a fish out of water." Slade chuckled. "Enough twisting out of your position, Dick. It's time to go back."

"Dick…." She turned to him, seeing that his eyes were strategizing; giving himself a second to compose a way over to the man she didn't appreciate. "You're Deathstroke, then, and this is –

"Renegade." Slade told the young woman. "My partner, from an apprentice. He's not going to bother asking your name. I already have you down as…Kane's kid."

She looked on, her senses startled as Dick just clambered to rise slowly. "Sir, we have to go. I think this is all….the owls doing."

"It is." Slade turned to Kate. "Whoever hired you to get him back, he's got a perfectly good bodyguard already. You can go."

"What?" Kate stomped her foot. "No, wait! I didn't just come to get him to slow down, I need to know what's going on on. Luke and I can see that you've made yourself cozy as a guard dog, but this is –

"Unethical?"

"Yes! Duh? Deathstroke, Bruce would NEVER stoop to hiring his enemy for life to watch over this city."

"He did, though." Dick swallowed and let Slade help him stand with a small nudge towards the ledge behind the man. "The video."

"Was forged; it can't be right and you know how he left things."

"He still kept an eye on his ward, but my apprenitce has graduated, or will this year if he succeeds in letting your worries rest. He's taken to being the bat, temporarily. You were told this?'

"As if no one didn't already guess. That is an understatement." Kate crossed her arms over her chest. "Dick, you know he's a manipulative jerk. Why are you opening up about all of the bat's secrets to an….an enemy??"

"He can't turn back on his word." Dick replied shakily. "Slade, my head…"

"What did –

Slade shot back at the girl; his annoyance not yet fully tested. "That is none of your concern, you have no part –

"I'd concur, you're right…" Sniffed Kate. "Because I'm going back there, with or without your permission."

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Dami was led out of the closet; there was no Duke, Alfred or Tim in the manor. Selina was there and brooding once the three runaway villains and ex – vigilante (ess) had come a knocking. Her claws were taught, yet Dami opened the door with a groan as Selina kept him standing. "I just missed who did this to him; was Dick out…as the bat or not?" She saw how he was dressed in jogger sweats from his recovery days in the cave. "Timothy."

Slade turned to Selina and puffed out. "Get the others. I think we have a problem, now."

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Slade paced like the big bat and it pissed everyone off. Bitter, confused, Kate tapped her fingers to the arm of the bat computer chair when Slade, miraculously was ready to talk. "Tim, was supposed to reveal to me, a way to stop the owls."

"You…. snake!" Dami jumped up as Selina dragged him from starting a new fight. Babs held onto Dick as his migraine could not have been more of a coincidence.

"We needed in, I was the one besides Bruce…" Grayson hissed and bit the inside of his cheek. Slade's posture was still and ridged for sympathies to anyone. Dami didn't trust that. Not one shred of his face could reveal so little; that HE had hypnotized Tim and Al and…and poor Duke! He still wasn't even aware about what this war had already done.

"You have a part to play here, Deathstroke. You and your little stooge just got stabbed in the back."

"Tim, was suggested to open the file, nothing was there." Slade sighed. "If you want to know, we've had…a possible intruder. The one who came when Dick had run off, all spies that were sent by the same person looking to control this city. The Bat was also, if I'm not mistaken, sold off. In those files, the Biyalia and Bosnia wreck of a mission left that man stranded. I wouldn't believe it myself." Slade scratched his chin. "Your father was then abducted no doubt by the enemy, but then who gave them the chance to engage." Slade's eye went wide. "But an all seeing eye; an owl's knowledge."

"Then, Bruce's disappearance IS connected to the Court."

"That was all I could read, yet that was all that they couldn't have tampered with –

"Or you. Open that file."

"Dami." Dick moved gingerly to the keys and turned to press his thumb as it was read, activated. "I'll do it, ok. Then, can you trust us?"

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So many barn owl masks and, a mention of the League having a role here. Dami's stomach lurched at the face his grandfather had in that scanned photo. "Ra's was out to have himself a prize, and the owls must be working with that creep…"

Kate's words made Dami bristle. His mother, she was…. not so loyal, right?

"I could get in touch with mother." Dami sat back down. "Show you she has no intent to follow his lead again."

"And the time I threatened you with a virus that could have killed off half of the population; or when Ra's got to the vaccine first." Slade smirked. "I think you could be wrong this time, Damian." He moved to clasp his hands behind his back as Dick scrolled over the data that had been saved after the bat's disappearance. "We have to go down there; confront Cobb. I can get him to tell us where they have Bruce."

"They don't." Slade corrected. "Ra's may. If we try to tempt the Court like before –

"Like?" Selina's hairs stood way up. "You have three abducted persons on your team now captured, a brainwashed and drugged batman stand - in…. I truly don't think you can handle this, Slade." He searched her, her disposition as level as his. "Bruce will be fine for now, you tell us. Yet who knows what they even want from him since his son turned into a hero. His partner became a double agent for more trouble to find us!"

"I did it for both sides." Dick leaned back with a hand over his eyes. "And now, the great bat needs his ten minutes of sanity back –

"There isn't time !" Kate shouted, making Dick's brows scrunch extra tight against his face.

Agony, and they weren't done.

"Where is Jason, humm?? Wanna go back to your old "killer" days while he puts on the tights and does better than you even tried to – Slade is keeping a lock on, what –

"He's not able to hold back."

She dropped her arm. "Dick? Why, why can –

Babs shook her head at the other red headed heroine. Kate looked at Dick, then at his partner's bored eyes. "What. Happened."

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Kate kicked the wall, nothing shattered though. Slade's stance was unchanged. Dami was not going to add fuel to Batwoman's fire; Todd could, he knew it was only a matter of time before the scouts came back. He and Luke had looked, but what would they find?

"You made him a serum – user, fuck!"

A rattle at the entrance shuddered back. Red Hood and Batwing entered, eyes darting around at the added crowd, some subtracted. "Who's doing a briefing without us?" Luke asked. Todd sneered at Slade's eye patched mug, hoping to set the record that he was onto the merc's plan.

If he even had it.

"Dick's basically the same as Duke, Tim and even…"

Babs looked on. She moved slowly before slamming at her hip –

"Protocol lockdown. No one is leaving the cave." She turned to Slade, her green eyes aching through him. "Tim was with you, you got the codes buy hypnotism isn't a Deathstroke trademark."

"Hypnosis??" Dick gawked and growled up at his partner. "You got him to show you the files! You never –

"You don't know either, same as me." Slade countered. "Barbara, you've lost this. I have no clue what you're saying."

" YOU don't" She smirked as Jason and Luke gripped the man's arms, Slade waiting for the right time to throw them off.

"Slade….how could you?"

"He couldn't, Grayson." Dami stood up and to him, this was expected of the plan.

"He wasn't going to remember what they did then. I remember you both went through those tunnels to save me, the message father left was forged. Wrong, and not by him. Slade was also manipulated BY the owls to do their bidding. We knew it because Slade's bio said nothing about him learning the skill. He allows others to crumble for him, anyway…"

"That's not possible!" Slade snarled. "I saved you, kid. You're the one who's seeing this all wrong."

"I, am?" Dick stood up, his golden orbs shining brightly back. "You….you were the culprit…I was just being handed to them…and you had no idea that it was WRONG??" Dick scoffed, a hand to his head as his grin was strained, upset that he'd been one to miss what only a detective could. Babs should take over. Bruce….

"Lock him up. And me –

"Dick?"

"Do it, until we know who's on your side, on the city's. Because, we can't get out. The protocol will flush out any talons if they are inside the manor. Duke and the others have to be in the Court's lair."

Jason waved off the idea of making a stink about a rescue mission in the sewers. "Then we go in, bust em out –

"You want to end up in solitary, Todd?" Snorted the youngest bat brother, as he allowed Todd's carelessness to finally irritate him again.

"I met someone else; it wasn't in the chamber." Slade blinked suddenly. Remembering his meeting with a shadow clad baddie. "He…was their leader. Owlman ."

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"They suspect too much, Great leader." Cobb was to one knee with his squad of talon fighters. "What would you have us do, apprehend the Gray – son?"

"No." Thomas stood over his captured guinea pigs in containers meant to keep them stable and asleep. "No, let them come. That mercenary owes us; the gray son was supposed to be done with his treatments to create the perfect awakening."

"He will be incapacitated with the bat children and their allies." Cobb promised. "My end is to train the Wayne child. Once you have the Gray son ready to lead us, that boy will have the DNA and skill of the only man to ever best our organization of the elite. The true leaders of –

"Go." Thomas pointed to the exit, Cobb swallowed his last words and bowed his head to his superior. "As you wish of the talon, Mr. Wayne."

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So, HERE. WE. GO! Dick finds out his own partner's mind was hijacked with half of the clan's and all they can do….is keep looking for a reason why. Right? Well…. next accompanies that "why," and we will add some more lovely - bickering among teammates; including Selina raging at her former favs. Find out!

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