For about a year and a half after the Dark Knight's death, Gotham seemed stagnant. By no means any more stable than it ever had been, still crawling with criminals and costumed madmen, but no worse for wear than it had been before. The Robin, Red Robin and Nightwing costumes had all been redesigned to bear the bat symbol in their centers, though bore few modifications otherwise.

Gotham's criminal population all handled the news differently. Firefly seemed more aggressive, forming a gang of would-be robbers to hit banks all over the city, insisting that only the Batman was ever good enough to stop him. Sentiments quickly silenced by Red Robin. Bane had broken into Wayne Manor in the middle of one night, tearing through rooms and passageways, demanding Bruce Wayne come out of hiding. It had taken Robin and Angel both to stop him. The Riddler had taken a local television station hostage and held a gun to his own head, swearing to kill himself and make Batman guilty by association if he didn't drop his charade. At the four hour mark he pulled the trigger and revealed the gun to be a prop, discarding it and obtaining a new one from one of his cronies. After twenty-seven hours, eight prop guns and a short conversation in which Nightwing sadly but simply said, "He's not coming," Edward Nygma sighed and walked over to one of his gunmen Nightwing had knocked unconscious. Dick hadn't been fast enough, Riddler killed himself with a bullet to his own head.

At ten PM one night, three months after the announcement, Jason Todd had knocked on the door of Dick's apartment. Over demands of how he got his address, Jason simply asked, "Is it true?"

"… Yes."

"… I don't really feel like bothering you guys anymore." He was never seen by any of his mentor's associates again.

Stephanie's trips out in the Batgirl costume grew fewer are farther between with the birth of Oscar. He would sometimes be left overnight with Crystal, Sadie or, rarely, Barbara, but Stephanie had made it a point she wanted to be responsible and present in the life of her son. Tim took as many nights off as he could, but the struggle to maintain order was growing frail enough with the lack of bodies as was. Gotham had reached its typical equilibrium, but as with any, only needed a slight push in any direction to send it careening backwards.

…

"How did you find my base, all those years ago?" Barbara asked, selecting and moving a pawn from the left side two spaces forward.

"Roman Sionis had some very interesting comments regarding that gang war that nearly destroyed this city," Prometheus said. "I started putting talk out in the streets, trying to track you down. Even many of Gotham's finest had never heard of the one called Oracle. You existed far outside of their realm of expertise. Sionis had never heard of you either, but he had always wanted to know what you were doing up in that clock tower. His so called Batcave. He suggested you were Batman's secretary, or something of the sort." He chuckled when Barbara scowled at the thought and made his next move. "I put two and two together pretty quickly. I just needed a sufficient hacker to get steal of your information—"

"Hence Kuttler just now," Barbara said, contemplating whether to move a knight or a bishop.

"And to ensure you would lead me the rest of the way."

…

July fourteenth, nine years before, Barbara had stopped at a tiny liquor store halfway between her and Dick's apartments. She didn't trust him with alcohol, he was too quick to spring for the cheap stuff and too much a lightweight to notice quality when he tasted it. The two weren't dating at the time, both insisting keeping the peace was more significant than their past relationships. But there was lots of sex and alcohol on the rare evenings they took off.

It was only as Barbara pushed herself outside that an assailant came from seemingly nowhere behind her and overturned her wheelchair. Knocked onto the pavement and shouting in pain, Barbara looked up in time to see the attacker, a young man in a red hoodie grab ahold of her purse and run, turning down the street before her and shouting "Come get it, gimpy!"

A kind civilian exiting the store was swiftly at her side, offering a hand and helping her back into her chair. "You alright, ma'am?" he asked.

"He stole my purse," she said, more to herself than her helper.

"You want me to call the cops?" he asked.

The insult, however unfitting, was clouding Barbara's judgement. "No. I'll handle this myself." And she quickly gave chase.

Barbara caught sight of the thief in red and rushed after him. Every few steps he looked behind him, pushing faster and faster before turning and disappearing into a giant, damaged building. Barbara was stuck behind a string of cars crossing the street but made it to the front of the building and had to double take when she got a good look at it. The thief had retreated into the Gotham Clock Tower.

The inner workings of the clock tower had been destroyed in the events of Black Mask's gang war. The charred, broken shell of the tower was all that remained, little more than a devastated eyesore.

Barbara moved through the tower slowly, eyes darting every which way, searching for some sign of the thief. After a few minutes of rolling through the bleak remains of the tower, she concluded he may be on an upper floor. There would be no reaching him, since the elevator was destroyed by the explosions within. Barbara's phone had been in her purse, leaving her unable to call the police and report the crime. Oh well, she thought to herself. I'll call Tim when I'm at Dick's. He can make some time.

Once again there was a jerk from behind her, knocking Barbara out of her chair. She pushed herself up again, gritting her teeth and looking for her assailant. As she did, a light, giggling voice echoed through the tower's shell.

"We're coming to get you, Barbara."

Her heart skipped a beat as the speaker came into view, his walk hard and stiff. He wore a simple brown leather jacket, a pair of blue jeans and a patch over his left eye, messy red hair falling over his face. As he reached Barbara, he awkwardly knelt down, a metallic clang giving away the braces on his legs. "Hello there, sister dearest."

Barbara, pushing through the pain of the fall, thrust herself off the ground and grabbed ahold of James Gordon Jr. by his jacket, pinning him on the ground and trapping him in a headlock.

"You should have never come back," Barbara said over James' gag. "Maybe I'll take out that other eye this time!"

It didn't take James more than a few seconds of struggling to force his mouth down to Barbara's arm and take a deep, bloody bite. The former superheroine held the lock as long as she could, but the pain forced her to relinquish it as James pushed back onto his feet. Another hand grabbed a handful of her hair from behind.

"Uh uh uh," a new voice mocked. "Can't let you do that, Oracle." This one's owner dressed in a simple white button up and glasses, a blonde head of hair slicked back atop his scalp.

With it clear none of her opponents taking her seriously, it was easy for Barbara to force her elbow back and knock him in the crotch. Noah Kuttler was quick to let out a shout of his own and clutched himself.

"Enough! You're like cats playing with your food!"

Barbara managed to turn her neck far enough to see the towering, armored figure approaching her. The same man now sitting across from her, studying the chess board.

With what seemed to be only the slightest effort, Prometheus grabbed ahold of Barbara by her neck, pulling her half-limp body off the ground and into what looked to be a supply closet. Prometheus forced Barbara's hand against an unusually smooth black section of the wall, tiny gears all around them springing to life and a small, square compartment revealing itself. With that, Prometheus held one of Barbara's eyes open and pushed it against the compartment as it ran a retinal scan. With another whirl, a slot containing two buttons opening at their side.

"Perfect. Gordon! Kuttler! Get over here."

The four crammed themselves into the closet as it descended deep into the ground, Barbara's struggle and yelling met with a smash into the wall, breaking open her forehead. After nearly ten-minutes of descent, the closet-turned-elevator opened into a long lost but still operational collection of over a hundred dormant computer towers. Barbara was tossed out lazily as Prometheus, James and Kuttler walked in, a salacious smile coming across the last of their faces.

"Oh, I've been dreaming of this," Kuttler said, rubbing his hands together and setting up a laptop at a small, dust covered table in the back of the room. "This is it, isn't it? Everything that made Oracle so mighty. I'm going to destroy your life's work, all from your own hard drives!"

"And when Oracle is undone, the legacy of The Batman is soon to follow." Prometheus said, stepping to Kuttler's side.

"A glorious new day is coming, Barbara," James said with a hiss. "A new Gotham will rise from the ashes. Just as soon as we've burned down the old one!"

…

[[Author's Note: I feel something of a need to apologize for the overabundance of flashbacks breaking into the narrative at this point. I know many readers may well find this distracting and want the focus to be on the "Now" of the story. To those readers I am especially sorry and can say this will be over with in a chapter or two and that these are as intrusive as they will get. I just feel that due to the deep planning that went into the road to this story, it needed some elaboration. I'm already trying very hard to abridge the events that got us to the story proper. I hope this isn't dissuading any reading and I hope these flashback sequences are at least entertaining and fulfilling. When this is done with the story proper will resume and more of my overabundance of subplots will be addressed.

I didn't exactly plan this story the best. I hope you can forgive me for that.]]