Chapter 15

"Alright, everyone get the take and split!"

Harvey Dent, the former district attorney of Gotham City, now Two-Face, moved out of the back way of the Second Street Bank of Gotham City with over two million dollars in two dollar bills. The man who once upheld the law was now breaking it.

"What about the Bat?" one of the thugs asked.

"Bah, the Bat, we haven't seen him in weeks, just the second stringers," Two-Face said. "A bunch of second rate punks that have…."

Two Face had been cut off mid sentence by one of his men being taken down. Batwoman flickered through the shadows. Two Face took out his ever-present silver dollar and flipped it into the air. It landed, bad heads up.

"Take her out!"

Two Face's gang fired at Batwoman who dodged the barrage of attacks. The red-haired crime fighter deflected their attacks and called in for some help.

The new Robin, Stephanie Brown, dropped down from the ceiling. She retracted a baton and swept the legs of the goons out from underneath them. One of them tried to hit her with a bullet from behind. A thud echoed across the back of the goon's head and Batgirl pulled him back.

"Watch your back!" Batgirl yelled.

Robin just nodded. She was new and fresh face to a lot of this. Another pair of the thugs rushed but Huntress, the former Robin, Helena Wayne, dropped down. She threw a smoke bomb at the ground, which caused the thugs to gag. Rapid fire attacks brought the goons down, two and two at a time. Huntress cracked their heads back and dropped them down to the ground.

White Canary joined them and a Canary cry brought them down.

Half of Two Face's gang bolted from the scene. Including the man himself. Only for yet another figure in the shadows to take out the gang with violent precision. Bones cracked and snapped.

"No, you're...you're dead!"

Batman himself appeared and grabbed the former district attorney before he smacked him in the face. Batman grabbed Two-Face and curb stomped him into the ground. A series of rapid fire punches down onto the back of Two Face's head just rocked him and blood appeared on the knuckles.

The no holds barred beating continued with Huntress, White Canary, Batwoman, Robin, and Batgirl all approaching him. Batman looked down at the former Harvey Dent. Blood spilled from the good side of the man's face. Blood spurted all over the place. Both sides almost actually matched each other.

"Tails you lose."

One final stomp and Two Face slumped to the ground. Then a burst of smoke caused the Dark Knight to disappear into the night.

To the gang members, Batman returned. However, to the various crime fighters, they had been baffled, because they knew that Batman was currently with the six members of the Justice League, about ready to stand trial for the crimes against the Kree. So, they all wondered what the hell was going on here?

The members of the team watched the final Timothy Hunter movie. Harry half-paid attention to the over the top theatrics of the Lad-Who-Survived's final battle with his malignant enemy, Mysterio. He had been going over the notes on the scans of Perdita's crystal and the element the Imperium had been hiding on the moon.

The final scene of the movie had been cut short, and the lovely face of Ms. Cat Grant appeared.

"This is Cat Grant, coming at you live with a special report of an unprecedented business deal, between Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor."

This bit of news delivered by Cat caused Harry to drop everything. The images of Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne coming together shook hands. Harry heard a buzzing in his ear and put it on.

"You seeing this?" Helena asked.

"The deal with Wayne and Luthor, I see it," Harry said. "Because, the last time I checked, Wayne was...indisposed."

"I know," Helena said. "I've been trying to get in contact with Lucius Fox or Alfred. You know, the two people who would most easily call bullshit on this."

"So they covered their bases," Harry said. "I'll meet you soon. Clocktower."

"I'll be waiting."

A group of cloaked assassins rushed "Bruce Wayne". "Bruce" dodged the attacks and popped up to nail them with multiple assaults. His fists of fury nailed the assassins with expert precision.

'Thomas Wayne ruined my life. He saved my mother's life, and stole my rightful legacy. And now I'm going to steal Bruce's legacy. All of his legacy. All of them, they don't understand what I'm capable of. But now, I'm going to take Bruce's life and his life under the cowl. I'm going to make Batman even more feared than ever.'

A violent assault brought one of the cloaked assassins down. Blood spurted out of the man's face. The faux Bruce Wayne smiled and hit a pin-point precision attack against the neck of another rushing goon and paralyzed him.

"Bravo."

The applauding form of Ra's al Ghul appeared off to the side. He approached the imposter Bruce Wayne who held one of the assassins in a chokehold. He dropped to the ground.

"You're going to have to bring me more durable enemies."

"You have the cadence down. And most of the maneuvers, although with a more violent spin. One might think you have become Batman."

The imposter responded with a nod.

"Unfortunately, you have a long way to go before you truly become the Detective."

And with lightning fast fury, Ra's al Ghul nailed the man in the side with a lightning fast blow and brought him down to his knees. Ra's put the walking stick he held on the man's throat and held it for several seconds, as if teaching him a very valuable lesson. Once Ra's let up, Hugo Strange stepped into the room.

"The surgery to your face, combined with the genetic material we took from Matthew Hagen, allowed you to play your part."

"Yes."

Lex Luthor stepped into the room and smiled, looking into Bruce Wayne's face.

"No one could challenge it. Even Mr. Pennyworth and Mr. Fox had their minds changed by our mutual friend. You have become Bruce Wayne. You will become Batman."

"I am far superior to both of them," the man stated.

Lex and Ra's chuckled in amusement. And then Talia stepped into the room and just looked at him, scoffing at his proclamation.

"You have a long way to go with that. Doctor Elliot," Talia said.

Ra's and Lex stepped into the next lab, to check on a mutual friend of theirs, one Doctor Jonathan Crane, better known as the Scarecrow. He was busy extracting chemicals from the spinal column of their subject. John Dee, Doctor Destiny, who had been rendered a vegetable after his encounter with Miss Martian.

"How is the progress, Doctor Crane?" Lex asked.

"He is remarkable, but while his mind is dead, his extraordinary power will live on," Crane said. "The secrets locked into him will allow me to control an experiment of fear on a far grander level."

Crane kissed Dee on the head like a doting mother.

"Your beauty will live on forever. Long after you do."

Eve Tessmacher popped out of the elevator, to get a cup of coffee. Suddenly a hand plucked her off of the guard and the next thing Eve knew, she was standing on the roof. A deep breath came from the secretary as she came face to face with Superman.

"A little heads up would have been nice next time?" she asked. "So, what can I do for you?"

"What's Lex's game?"

"I'm not sure, he's very discreet about this one, and I'm shocked that Wayne signed off on it," Eve said. "Because, he's been very adamant of not working with LexCorp due to us selling weapons to the military. He's not a fan of guns."

Harry understood that and he gave the lovely blonde secretary one of those looks.

"Hey, he did sign off on it," Eve said. "I know he did. Here's...here's the papers to prove it. I've got copies here. I make copies of everything I handle, for...insurance purposes."

Eve took out the documents and Harry looked at them. They had Bruce Wayne's signature all over them. He made a photocopy of the documents. The signature looked authentic to Harry. Perhaps he should get a second opinion on it though.

"Enjoy your coffee."

With a blink of an eye, Harry had Eve downstairs. She had just gotten off of the elevator, but everyone in the building had been frozen for at least ten second. She looked down, before shrugging her shoulders and time resumed in the building.

There were times where it was better off if she did not ask questions. Just go with the flow and all that.

Back at the Clocktower, Harry returned with the documents. Kate, Barbara, Helena, Harry, and Sara poured into the documents.

"That signature is on point," Kate said. "It looks like his signature."

"It does," Helena said. "Babs?"

"We'll know in a minute."

Barbara copied the documents and prepared to run a scan, comparing it to other documents Bruce Wayne signed. The computer showed there was an almost perfect match and it was good enough to fool the naked eye. But would it be good enough to fool someone like Lucius Fox or Alfred? Barbara could not get in touch with either of them which was worrisome for numerous reasons.

"Ninety-seven percent match," Barbara said. "Almost perfect. About as good as you can get with a forgery."

"What worries me is why Lex needed Wayne's resources to build this," Harry said. "It's some kind of air purification system."

"Says here it should be able to reduce most of all air pollution," Barbara said. "Which is weird. Why did Lex go through the trouble of arranging a phone deal with Wayne Industries, imposter of all for such a noble device? There's something that doesn't add up with this one."

"You should do some digging," Kate said. "There has to be more to this than meets the eye….."

"Wait," Harry said. "It can reduce pollution, but it also can release a chemical into the air with enough tweaking."

"So, the Light intends to poison people," Sara said.

"Maybe, so they can have their squad of heroes, the Thunderbolts save the day," Batwoman said. "Lex is creating a false epidemic to get credibility for the general public."

"There's something else missing, namely his identity," Harry said. "He's a real question mark."

"Well, it can't be an evil doppelganger, because his signature would be perfect, not a clone either," Barbara said. "Some kind of shapeshifter, maybe, maybe, I don't really….it's hard to say."

It was hard to say. The fake Batman had been some kind of question mark to be honest.

"Good news is I've been able to track the system," Barbara said. "It's being stored in a warehouse in Old Gotham."

"You take care of that, I'll track down Batman," Kate said.

White Canary, Huntress, Batgirl, and Superman slipped through the shadows where the system was being held. Naturally, there was a bomb in the area and it could go off in any minute.

"So, now what?" Huntress asked.

Harry thought about it for a split second and came up with the obvious solution.

"Clear the upstairs area, I'm going to deactivate the bomb," Harry said. "The mechanism is simple enough, but obviously, in case they have a surprise, we need the people out of here."

Sara, Barbara, and Helena all nodded. They took about three steps to the stairs, only to find out a group of assassins descended from the ceiling.

One of the assassins charged at White Canary. White Canary blocked the attack and jumped into the air. She swept the legs out from underneath the assassin. A chain shot through the air and White Canary dodged the attack. Two blades came close and White Canary took them out with a furious series of swipes.

"Really don't have time for this!" Huntress grumbled.

Somehow though, Huntress thought they were not going to have a choice. The assassins charged her. Huntress jumped up high into the air and came down onto the back of one of her attackers with a thud. Huntress did a flip and landed onto the ground. Another assassin tries a series of jabs in the air. Huntress dodged and blocked most of the attacks before she came up and flipped down onto the ground to drive her enemy down to the ground.

Batgirl kept them away from Harry. She grabbed the man down across the back of the head and flipped him down to the ground.

Harry closed his eyes and deactivated most of the bomb. However, upon the final wire, there was some kind of triggering mechanism which would release the chemical. The bomb would explode regardless and if the bomb exploded, it would release the chemical inside of the bomb on a far grander scale than if Harry pulled the wire.

He realized this bomb had been designed in mind for some hapless hero. Harry put all of the shields possible to block the spread of the chemical into the tunnel before he pulled it.

Fear toxin squirted Harry in the face. He inhaled enough toxin to wipe out a huge city block.

The spread of the toxin had been blocked. However, the world spun around Harry and suddenly, everything went completely batshit insane.