Chapter Text
“How much of that did you hear?”
Jason puts his mask back on.
“Everything…but I take that you are not here as bodyguards”
Zatanna smiles at the trio before getting back in her serious demeanor.
“No. We are not. Unlike you heroes, we work and we get information”
Artemis tells the magician.
“I did not help the reds”
Zatanna smiled at Conner’s brother.
“Thank you, Biz”
She turns her gaze towards her brother-in-law.
“They are putting Grayson through a ritual to make him the true and final assassin for the Court…”
The Amazon steps in.
“The first trial is about torture, the second one is a kind of tournament? Or fight of some sorts against multiple enemies…”
Zatanna cringes. She saw all the blood the Court draw out his body during the torture and she cannot imagine how could he fight in that state.
“Anything else?”
“No, that was all we got”
Red Hood answers.
“Where do you guys got that information? Who’s your source?”
Jason and Artemis interchange looks.
“He is not dead”
Zatanna frowns at Bizarro’s answer.
“He knew nothing more”
“How did you know? I could have use my magic and get more information out of him”
“He did not know anything more. We are sure about that”
The Amazon glares at the magician and the homo-magi glares back.
“We better go and look for more clues…”
Jason puts himself between the women.
“C’mon, Red. Let’s get out of here”
Zee doesn’t fail to notice the change in attitude of the Bat and the Amazon.
“You are right. See you later”
Bizarro and Artemis jumps away.
“Call me if that blonde gives you problems”
Jason tells his sister-in-law before grappling out of there.
“How do you feel, son?”
Dick starts stretching after the Lazarus’ bath, he was surrounded by the Talons to make sure that he doesn’t try anything.
“Better but why does the court have a Lazarus?”
“No, not yet. You haven’t gain our trust…you need to get ready for the next test”
William signals his blood to follow him. The duo starts roaming through the place.
“Why the bodyguards?”
Dick looks back to all the Talons looking at him.
“I told you. We don’t trust you and we don’t want you to call for the Bats or the Witch”
Dick opted to stay quiet, but no one calls his wife, Witch.
“We are almost there but first, enter this room and change your clothes”
Grayson was still wearing his torn out Nightwing suit. After a quick change, Dick gets out of the room wearing a black ninja suit.
“Very well. Follow me”
Dick follows his relative to an another dark room. The Court’s enforcer push him and Dick falls into a pit. Thanks to his skill he landed on his feet but soon enough the lights of the room were turned on.
“Your next test is about survival. How long will you survive on your own, no Team and no toys”
A door opens as he sees a single Talon coming out.
“I just have to fight them to level up?”
Dick looks up examining the room for anything in particular and quickly spots where the one glass is and starts talking directly to whoever was there.
“Indeed. Beat them and you might go on a mission”
“Alright then. Bring it on”
Dick gets on his fighting stance.
After many enemies down, Dick reaches the 100th Talon. He was bruised, bleeding, and barely standing but he was still with his guard up.
“Very well. You are everything we expected…perhaps more but before we can iníciate you, we need you to show us your loyalty. We need you to get Wayne Technology”
Dick keeps panting before he was taken to his quarters to patch himself, eat and get some rest before the plan is set in motion.
“You are taking a small group of our soldiers to assist you but wether this missions is a success or not is up to you”
“What am I getting from Wayne Enterprises?”
“Outsiders. Wayne Enterprises is getting attacked and there’s a lot of people”
Wonder Girls ignites the trouble alert.
“In broad day light? Do we know who are we against?”
Conner asks.
“No. It’s unclear, all the cameras and the security footage have been disable…”
Robin answers the Kryptonian.
“Then we better go. ASAP”
Bart was ready for action.
“Alright. SuperBoy, Robin, Kid Flas with me. The other stay on stand by and wait in case we need back up or there is trouble somewhere else”
“My X-Ray vision doesn’t work”
The Outsiders were already outside the building riding sphere and planing how to get in.
“Yeah. They upped the security since Luthor and Toyman put X-Ray vision on the Lexbots”
Tim informs his friend.
“Robin! Do you know a way to get us in without getting spotted?”
Cassie ask as Tim starts looking through his holo computer and pin points a secret entry for the dynamic duo.
“We should be safe going from here. This a secret entry for us. No one knows about it”
KF, Wonder Girl and Sb follows Tim through a secret passage.
“We should be cle-“
The heroes were surrounded by 5 Talons that were waiting for them.
“How is that they were expecting us in this super secret passage?”
“No time for that Kid. Let’s fight this guys and found the leader. These are the guys that got Nightwing!”
Cassie was ready to knock some guys out and get his mentor back. Knowing who the enemy was, the heroes were extra motivated to engage, it has been two weeks since Dick was last seen and this is their first encounter with the Court. The Amazon and the Kryptonian easily overpowers their enemies as they rush to the R&D section of the building. There they found some hostages, another 5 Talons but one of them looked different that the others with his suit looking more brown that black, with golden details and scarf, that Talon was the one with the tech on his hands.
“Let’s be careful. Tigress told me about a bigger one that easily took her, Arsenal and Spoiler out”
Conner gets in fighting position.
“He could be waiting for his moment to strike, stay alert!. Kid! Get the hostage out of here, Sb! Robin! Take down the Talons and I get the tech back”
Kid speeds into rescue getting one hostage at the time. Unlike the previous Talons, these ones were better fighter and hold their own against the Boy Wonder and the Boy of Steel.
“Where’s Nightwing? What did you guys do to him?”
Cassie cracks her knuckles as the Talon calls for another one who was hiding and gives the technology to him to get away.
“You want to dance? Let’s dance. You are going to tell me where my friend is…”
The blonde rushes towards his opponent who easily dodges his attack and counters her with and axe kick sending her to the ground. Conner leaps into the fight and Dick dodges his friend attack with his acrobatics, a detail that triggered Tim’s radar. The kryptonian keeps his rush of attacks and Grayson uses the clone’s strength against him. Before he could do anything else, the speedster tackles him and send him flying.
“Who’s this guy?”
Bart helps Cassie.
“No idea but he’s not joke. Unlike the others, he doesn’t seem to be a brainless zombie…”
Dick knew that there was no way that he could beat the four of them at the same time so he had to recur to other tactics. He throws smoke bombs, blinding everyone but Tim, who approached him and start attacking him with his bow staff. Trying to not blow his cover, Dick changes his fighting style to a more aggressive one, like the one that Slade taught him with some skills he has pick up from his training with the Court.
“Nightwing is that y-“
Tim couldn’t finish his sentence as his enemy knocks him out unconscious. The smoke starts to steer clear and the heroes sees and unconscious Tim on the floor.
“You did not jus-“
Cassie stops talking as the Talon throws his blades towards them. Kid catches all of them thinking that they were just pointing things.
“Easy breezy, lemon squeeeeee-“
The quivers explodes knocking the speedster.
“SB, subdue him. I’m going to check on Robin and Kid”
“My pleasure”
Conner approaches the Talon with more caution than he previously did. He decides to approach the fight like as he was fighting against more skilled fighters than him like Canary, Nightwing, Batman, among other of his peers.
“Are you going to talk? Or do I have to make you talk?”
Dick changing his style, fought less agile than how he would normally do, giving Conner the window to bear hug him.
“Surrender or- Aghhh”
Dick stabs Conner with his quill on his leg. The quill had kryptonite inside making Conner fall to his knees. Nightwing only stares at Cassie, the leader of the Outsiders knew that she needs to help Conner out as much as she hated let the Talon go and their only lead on Dick’s whereabouts with him