Ascension 2

Chapter Thirty Four: Oracle Of….Part Two.

"Nightwing?"

Nightwing smiled, he had been expecting this to come up, almost since the moment where he left the device at the GCPD headquarters. Actually, he was almost surprised that she did not unlock the object before now.

He smiled as he watched the male of the dastardly duo be brought in, with Black Canary going off in the other direction in an attempt to bring down the female of the species.

"Well, I was expecting this call," he stated and she was completely thrown off guard by these words.

"You…you were?"

"Someone like you, you needs to be challenged," Harry told her and there was a second where there was a pause. "It took you a long time but you hacked your way past the gates and I could not be more pleased with what you did."

"Um….thanks," Barbara said as she was caught completely off guard. She had no idea what to make of this but she should have known he wouldn't have dropped the object without a good reason.

"I doubt this is a social call, you wanted to tell me something. What is it?"

Barbara took a few moments to regain her bearings, it was hard to shake her head from where she sat.

"Well….yes it isn't a social call, I heard something….Braden and the SWAT Team, they are selling the guns from lock up back to the criminal underworld, the major factions….all of them…."

"If the Mafia gets their hands on the fire power, it will put them on even keel with others," Nightwing whispered.

"Right, right, they would be, that does make a lot of sense," Barbara said excitedly as she was going a mile a moment. It was a modern miracle.

'Eager, isn't she?' Zatanna chuckled in amusement.

'Well she wouldn't be Barbara if she wasn't,' Pamela said as she decided to ask the question. 'So are you going to tell her….'

'Don't want to ruin the fun,' Harry said to Pamela and there was some laughter from all of the girls on the bond network.

'Still think the look on her face will be priceless when she figures out Harry Potter and Nightwing are one and the same,' Kara giggled and there was plenty of agreement.

'So priceless that you might be able to make a MasterCard commercial out of it,' Amanda chimed in and there was plenty of nodding on all sides.

'Well it will be interesting,' Lily admitted as she figured that sooner or later, Barbara would put things together. And perhaps she already had, but she was denying what she knew. The reason was that she didn't want to admit that she had been fooled, even if it was for a short time.

Denial was an extremely powerful thing. Someone like Barbara Gordon was bound to have it in spades. A genius was going to be like that way and there was no denying that Barbara was a genius, a prodigy even.

"So, tell me exactly what Branden had to say," Nightwing invited Barbara and that was something that caused Barbara to jump in.

"Well, I told you about how he is trying to fence the weapons from lock up onto the open market," Barbara said as she stopped only long enough to catch her breath. It almost amused Harry with what he heard. "And he's targeting Vicki Vale….he said something about teaching her a lesson about snooping around."

"Of course," Harry said, trying to keep his voice neutral. He never knew a fool like Braden to give up after the first failure. And this was only the beginning.

He pieced together what he learned in his mind and the little incident that he ran into was only the tip of the iceberg of crazy.

'A fanatic is one that re-doubles his efforts, even when all has failed,' Lily chimed in.

'My thoughts exactly,' Harry thought, he knew that the little message he sent to the SWAT and then the one he sent directly to Branden was not going to sink in.

'So, we should get ready, shouldn't we?' Kara asked him.

'Yes,' Harry confirmed as he pieced together what Barbara had given him and she had given him a lot. Of course, he always suspected that there was more than a few pieces of the puzzle missing. 'Get anyone available and get the Map ready. Not sure how much we're going to need it but it couldn't hurt to have some extra eyes out.'

"I'm coordinating some efforts on my end, please stand by," Harry told Barbara and she grew all excited.

"Oooh are you talking too….."

"Remember, even the most secure channels can be hacked by a sufficient mind, as you demonstrated," Harry warned her before she could say anything.

"Right….right….I'll let you do what you need to do, and I'll be standing by," Barbara replied as her voice rose

"Do that, I'll be back, I swear," Harry told her as he leaned over and looked over into Gotham City, his city. And he was not going to let some group of thugs change that by making the already violent situation even more so.

He knew one thing, he was in for a long time. Mist rose from his breath as he coordinated his efforts to strike and strike hard.

Gotham City was not the place to be for many people after dark, because there were many people who vanished underneath the cover of darkness. And the police honestly did not care about the people who were kidnapped, not at all.

If those people were homeless, then they cared even less. A pair of homeless men were backed in the alleyway by a gang.

"Hey, man, we don't want any trouble…."

"Well you've got trouble now," one of the gang bangers said as he looked at the hobo. His unkempt expression was a source of great disgust to him. "You know, you didn't really pay the toll, did you? This is our turf."

"What the hell are we going to pay with, our movie star looks?" the second one of the homeless man said but he was shoved against the trash can in response for his insolence.

"Mind your tongue, or we'll cut it out, this is our territory, you either get with the program, or you get out," the gang member said as he flicked the hair against the homeless man. He grinned, showing three gold teeth, which were paid for by the protection money that they commanded. "You see, we don't like any filthy freeloaders, and if you people aren't going to pay the toll, maybe you're better off at the bottom of the river."

"It's people like you who are the reason why people like us are on the street anyway!" the mouthy hobo said but two of the other members of the gang grabbed him from behind and held him against the wall.

"Doesn't seem to be worth much?" the gang member asked as he looked at him and flickered the switch blade. "Doubt that your blood will fetch much, at the blood bank. I mean, who knows what you've got in it?"

The gang member sliced open the shirt of the hobo, revealing his pale and hairy flesh. He placed a hand upon it, scratching it.

"Got to pay the toll, my friend, and maybe we should show what happens to freeloaders that mooch off of us in Gotham City," he whispered through gritted teeth. "We're going to show you what happens to people like you, teach you a nice lesson. I don't think any of you will be forgetting it any time soon."

"No please, he didn't mean it, did you?" the other hobo asked as his pale and flabby skin got even paler but the other members of the gang decided to grab him and hold him back.

"Oh he didn't mean it, he didn't mean to step onto my land without my permission?" he asked as he slapped the hobo so hard in the face. The homeless man shuddered immediately. "You see…..I don't believe that it. You should have thought about that when you couldn't get the money to pay the toll. Spent all of it on cheap hooch….."

CRUNCH!

The leader of the pack slumped down to the ground, the side of his skull squashed like an overripe melon like he dropped to the ground and his neck was snapped back immediately.

"Who is there?"

The two gang members walked forward and they were plucked into the shadows. The two homeless men could not see what happened but the sounds of crunching bones and the screams could be heard as the gang was pulled into the shadows.

Their eyes widened, their mouths hung open, they could not believe it. What just happened? Did they stumble into something worse?

"Guy got it because of some alligator man on the East Side, I say we beat it," the man whispered out of the side of his mouth and his friend nodded on the side.

However, they saw two men in the shadows, they were over seven feet tall and would tower over most men. The two homeless men were intimidating as they were in the looming spectator of these two gentlemen.

The first man looked like he had a scruffy beard and wide eyes, the eyes of someone that you did not want to meet in a dark alleyway. He had stringy black hair that went down past his shoulders. His broad shoulders were covered by a jacket, which underneath it he had a white wife beater top. He wore grimy blue jeans and a pair of spiked cowboy boots. He held in his hands something, a pipe of some sort, that had blood splatters on it.

The second man was even taller than the first one if that was possible. His head was shaved bald, although he was wearing a knit cap of some sort. He had a massive red beard that extended down past his chest. His broad shoulders were covered by a jacket as well, as his bulky physique could be seen. Seven feet tall and dangerous looking, at least from the perspective of the man. He wore a green shirt and green bottoms although it was hard to make out in the darkness.

The two homeless man were steered in the right direction, although they could not fight it immediately.

They saw a third man step out of the shadows. He had black hair that extended to his shoulders, along with a black beard. A white priest collar topped off his outfit, which was a black top, a black jacket, and black pants. He was a large man but he could not be by any means called husky. His name was Deacon Blackfire.

"So, Brother tell me, have you heard the word?"

Dinah Lance enjoyed a good hunt but she was pretty sure that she was given the slip. She had to admit that she was stepping in there with a worthy adversary.

'You can't have gotten far,' Dinah thought as she looked around every corner. The woman managed to blend into the shadows quite nicely.

That caused Dinah to throw herself into the other side, to think what she might have done had she been in the woman's shoes. That was a curious thought but never the less, she looked around. Her neck arched from one side and then arched to the next side.

'This way,' she thought as she looked around. She had to be careful because her archery skills pretty good.

Far better than Oliver Queen, who had some raw talent but as far as she knew, he had not managed to train them up properly as of yet. He did have potential to do something great with his skills, if he decided to hone them. That was a big "if" however. He had to focus on something else other than being a jackass. Never the less, Dinah kept herself perched on her heels.

'Hmmm,' Dinah thought as she had a theory but it remained to be seen whether that theory would bare any substantial amount of fruit.

Around the corner but there was nothing. Dinah's eyes averted up, she would not be surprised if the woman was standing up above her.

Still nothing but then Dinah got a door slammed towards her face. She managed to block it as the woman popped up.

Dinah found herself flying head over heels. It was not trash day, otherwise this would be completely more messy than it was. An arrow fluttered down on the top of her head but she blocked it, rolling back, and wincing.

She nearly got caught with that one and she jumped up. It was done, she was done playing games.

Kick connected right in the bridge of the woman's nose but she blocked another attack. It was a game of punch, deflect, punch, deflect as they backed each other off. Both woman circled each other, neither wanting to be the one to give up any quarter.

The mysterious woman did a back flip and landed on her face. She gave a slight smirk as she forced Dinah to take some cover behind a parked car. Otherwise she would have been turned into a human pincushion.

'Son of a bitch,' Dinah thought as she closed her eyes. The arrows fired into the side of the car and the woman had to look around. It was time to take her toy away from her and try to even the fight.

The blonde's ankle was grabbed and then seconds later she was slammed down onto the hood of a car. She bounced up and turned her head around, closing her eyes, and gritting down her teeth. She was playing hard to get for sure.

"Face me!" Dinah called in the shadows but she disappeared immediately.

An arrow impacted the side of the fire extinguisher which it exploded and caused an explosion of dust. Dinah hurled her arms around and that allowed the woman to disappear into the night. It was not before she got one more shot immediately.

Dinah was not about ready to give up the chase that easily. Even though she got some pretty good distance between the two of them. The blonde scrambled forward, about to deal with her prey.

A subtle buzzing in her ear caused Dinah to stop in her tracks. It was a telltale sign that there was some transmission coming through. She stood, hand on her hip, and winced at the bruised rib. She stood up straighter and focused for what Harry said.

'Dinah, we've got a situation,' Harry thought to her and Dinah placed her hands on the back of her head and frowned.

'What kind of situation?' Dinah asked as she was extremely curious.

'Meet me back, and I'll fill you in, I swear,' Harry told her and Dinah was not about to delay, she scrambled there to join Harry. 'Let's just say that the SWAT stuck their hands into the cookie jar and are trying to give the proceeds to the fine criminal underworld of Gotham City.'

Dinah whistled as she climbed up to join Harry. Already she was loving this, but she was pretty sure that this was only the tip of the iceberg of insanity.

Black Canary and Nightwing were not the only two people who were on the hunt tonight, a certain detective loomed in the shadows. He was keeping a careful eye on everything; he needed to track them down.

The human trafficking ring, Batman needed to find them. He had many leads and all of them were turning up cold. He felt like he was banging his head against the wall often. He hoped this latest lead was going to bare fruit because if he did not find anything, they might have slipped under ground.

The people behind it were turning on dead and by the time he turned up, the bodies were days old. There was nothing for them, it was a cold lead. He was way too late to the party although he had this indication that he was getting really closer to pinpointing the people it.

Well he was clearer to finding out the people, it went without saying that the League was behind this and he was pretty sure that they were covering their tracks. Whoever was behind this mad it their business was to skip town.

The bodies were days old and the latest one he found had enough decomposition for Batman to know that this was completely useless.

Another wrinkle was added to the fun as the homeless of Gotham City turned up missing. Batman had no idea what happened but he was pretty sure that this might be tied together. At least that was the easiest explanation to what was a baffling case.

It was not that prominent of an event, the number of homeless missing but Batman noticed it. Although he was sure that many people weren't going to notice because it was the homeless and they were less than nothing in Gotham City. And they disappeared all of the time, either moving onto another city or turning into John or Jane Does, ending up in a Gotham City Morgue.

The crime scene he stood at was a lot fresher. He pulled his scanner from the belt and prepared to see if there was any physical evidence that he could use to help piece these things together.

'The ring leader?' he thought but it was extremely hard to tell due to the victim in question was missing his head and his hands. The person behind this murders took things increasingly personally.

Batman stepped forward and prepared to investigate.

CRACK!

Some kind of blur came out of the shadows and nailed Batman with increasing fury. The Detective felt all of the air leave his lungs as this woman attack him with about three or four blows before Batman could even register them. And what he registered hurt.

Batman ducked his head and rolled underneath the attack. He flung a series of gas balls into the air to even up the battle. The balls busted open on the floor and caused a cloud of cover to manifest around them.

A dagger flung from out of nowhere but Batman caught it in his hand. The dagger was a distraction, as his legs were cracked back. This action caused him to briefly close his eyes. The second that he did this turned out to be a mistake.

Then another kick knocked him through the window. His back connected with the glass that shattered as he flew backstage. The Detective flew down onto the dumpster beneath the apartment, landing with a thud.

The attack happened so fast that he could not use the grapnel to hold himself up. She caught him off guard and was likely gone.

Batman pretty much realized that she could have killed him had she chose to. This was not a death, it was a message.

The good thing was that he bounced off of the side of the dumpster. His elbows were sore, his knees were sore, back was a bit dinged but he walked it off. The Cowled Crusader turned his head around and swallowed the lump in his throat.

A transmission fired up and Batman shook things off, to promptly answer.

"Yes," Batman said as he shook off the injuries.

"It's me, there's a situation," Nightwing said and Batman paused and nodded.

"I'm listening," Batman said gruffly as he gave him the opening to explain and needless to say this was pretty bad.

Vicki Vale was bored out of her skull, to the point where her skull was bored out of her skull. Sometimes, in Gotham City, one could go from reporting on the biggest gang war in the city history to some little fundraiser where a bunch of douchebag parents put things together to make to celebrate their children's accomplishments. It made their children feel better about their own sense of self-worth and also, it also made their parents look better even though they were completely awful people.

So it was one of those win-win situations, as far as Vicki could figure it out anyway. The intrepid reporter saw a group of children, sons and daughters of some most rich and famous. This time, they were here to give out awards to the boy and girl scout of the year, but this was just a publicity piece.

'Oooh, I'm sure there's got to be something else more interesting going on in Gotham City,' Vicki thought, this was not the happening place to be.

On the bright side, if Vicki ever developed insomnia, all she would have to do was get a tape of this guy's speech and allow herself to be lulled to sleep by it. That would in fact be the ticket.

The children were happy, so there was that. Vicki was not happy, so there was that as well.

They were talking about the donations that were sent by some of the rich and famous in Gotham City, it was Luthor, Stagg, Wayne, all of the usual suspects. Harry Potter also put in a sizeable donation even if he was not present, but that did not surprise Vicki at all.

It was good public relations for him and also a task write off. Vicki kept her eyes peeled to see if Harry was here in personal but she slapped herself. He would have far better things to do than put in an appearance tonight.

Speaking of people who looked like they thought that they had far better things to do, the two guards nodded off.

BANG!

Vicki was taken completely off guard from the thunderous bang that echoed from outside. The reporter nearly jumped out of her skin.

A man in the Richard Nixon mask from the report bank heist a while back showed up, and Kennedy, Johnson, and a fourth perp, with a red bandana over his face showed up. All of them were packing.

"Alright, boys and girls, listen up, today you're all here for a very charitable donation," the man in the red bandana said as he looked around. "Namely, the adding of more money, to my bank account, so why don't you all pony up the cash, and come on, it's your for your children's future."

"After all, Children are our most precious resource," "Nixon" said as he held the gun on them and the rich bastards looked about ready to protest what they were going to do but the Ex President Gang meant business. They began to shoot up the displays with the rewards, causing people to scream.

"Well that was the money well spent at WalMart," "LBJ" quipped as the red bandana man surveyed the awestruck crowd.

"That just proves that these rich bastards are going to want to watch all of Gotham City burn underneath their feet," the red bandanna man said as he looked over his shoulder. "So…..are you going to do this, or are we going to make you do this?"

There was a loud round of laughter from them all and he grabbed one of them around the throat. The guards tried to interfere but they were zapped from behind by a fifth perp, with a stun gun.

"Well that's shocking," one of the masked men stated, his mask hiding the grin, as they gave it all up, gold, jewelry, you name it.

Vicki made her way, shielded behind another display but they seemed to be interested in cleaning out the people there. The shell shocked children would be in therapy for some time after this.

"Hey, hey, sweetheart, hey you back there!" "Nixon" yelled as he looked at Vicki who had come up to get a closer look.

"She's a reporter," "Kennedy" said as he looked at her with a leering sneer.

"Well, make sure you get our good side, honey," the red bandanna man said as he looked around, making sure the hood was secure. "We're misunderstood; we're not like these people."

The display blew up and Vicki staggered around, right into the waiting arms of the ex-president gang.

"I can tell ya our biography, right we take you for a little ride," the red bandanna man stated with a leer as they grabbed her, Vicki struggling against their grip.

He put a gun at her head and dragged her off, to where she didn't know.

"So, we really don't have enough information to deal with the problem," Barbara said and that was a huge problem that the redhead was not too happy about. It was like trying to batter one head's into a brick wall. There seemed to be no way around the situation.

"Well, it's up to find out more information so we can go after it," Nighwing told her and the redhead nodded.

"Right, right, I'll see what I can do," Barbara said as she braced herself to do just that. "Can you find anything on your end….."

"I have monitoring all around Gotham City but the problem is that it's a big area, it's going to be like finding a needle in a haystack," Nightwing said and Barbara chewed on the side of her mouth, muttering underneath her breath.

"Right, right, let's see what we got here," Barbara whispered as she tried to make the trail a little bit clearer.

She was going to go straight to the source and there was Branden's computer that was the place to be. He did have some rather heavy encryption, so she was going to have to work doubly hard to try and break through the network.

'No sweat, I like a challenge,' Barbara thought to herself as she cracked her knuckles and went to work. 'And….his computer isn't connected….'

"We have a problem," Barbara said after she picked up the communication device once again after trying to access it for about fifteen minutes.

"What kind of problem?" Nightwing asked and Barbara was only too happy to elaborate about the entire situation.

"Branden's computer, it got disconnected from the Network," Barbara explained to him and Nightwing was silent. "Nightwing?"

"That does constitute as a problem and we're running low on time if he plans to sell the guns tonight," Nightwing said after he thought things over. "You're going to have to break into his office and see if you get hop onto his computer but you must not be seen."

"Don't worry, I've got an idea," Barbara said as she had the communication device in her hand and she walked forward.

She could see that Branden's office door was locked as it should be. A hair pin managed to take care of that and allow her entrance into the man's office.

Barbara slipped inside, stopping as she saw his computer there.

"I'll need a password but I'm sure someone this high up changes it often," Barbara said as she prepared to hook it into the computer. "I'm going to see what I can do to get into it….."

"Now that we've got an uplink to the network, we should be able to ease your way open the best that we can," Nightwing said. "Just let the device do its thing."

"Okay but we kind of got eight minutes before the shift change and I got to get out of here," Barbara warned him.

"Don't worry, trust me," Nightwing said in a soothing voice and Barbara could feel that she could. There was something about him that she could tell that he could.

While the computer was being linked back up to the network, she decided to snoop around the old fashion way. Perhaps he had thought that people would not be looking for the obvious pen and paper approach.

A page had been ripped from the notepad on the desk, there was something up immediately. Perhaps Barbara was just being paranoid but that was sure. She picked up a pencil and another piece of paper.

She ran the pencil over it and there were a series of numbers appearing over them. The redhead frowned as she wondered…..she wondered but she was not going to be sure.

"Two, Nine, Eight, Seven, Three, and Four," Barbara muttered as she looked things over and her brain locked into placed. "They seem to be coordinates of some sort, but to what?"

"We'll find out soon," Nightwing said and he decided to give a good news. "Network permissions have been reestablished, you're good to go."

"Good, I'm glad," Barbara said and there were a few minutes to spare. Yet, she could hear two people talking down the hallway, so she best move quickly. She made her way down the hallway frantically.

Just as time as it turned down as there was a SWAT Team Member coming down the hallway.

'So she hasn't been able to put together A and B or rather you're Black Canary?' Harry thought to the blonde crimefighter as they joined Batman who was on the roof, about ready to get the information relayed to them.

'Well, I don't think the subject ever came up that my mother was the original,' Dinah thought as she crossed her arms across her chest and smiled. 'Then again, she hasn't figured out that Nightwing is Harry Fucking Potter.'

'Oh people and their blindspots,' Kara thought as her lips curled into a smile.

"Okay, we're all here," Nightwing said to the girl at the other end of the communication device.

"Right, I checked into those coordinates, and they're all major Gotham City landmarks, in fact, I'm sure that there might be more than I uncovered but those are the ones that I had," Barbara said in rapid fire fury as she was speaking fast and excitedly, not really unable. "I'm going to give you the locations right now."

Batman remained calm in the shadows as he had the locations. They were all around some rather major businesses in Gotham City.

"And the last one?" Harry asked the redhead over the other end of the link and she decided to double check it.

"The big one is behind the Monarch Theater," Barbara told him and Harry could see a visible moment of reaction from the Detective.

Eight years old, his innocence was lost forever, if they had just taken the pearls, he only wanted the pearls. Darkness, the beginning of something but the end of something else, it all flashed through his head.

"Six locations in all," Batman said as he chimed in business as usual.

"Yes, six locations," Harry agreed as he looked around. "We're going to need to coordinate our efforts but I think we got something. So, we're going to head in right…"

Harry left his words hanging, he did not want to call Barbara by her real name. Batman did not know who she was after all.

She paused after a moment of thought and she decided to offer a solution to that particular dilemma. "Call me Oracle."