"He's coming to, thank heavens." A voice said.
"Good thing I found him not fat from where his last transmission ended." Another voice said.
Bruce groaned as he started to regain consciousness.
Blinking a couple of times, the first thing he saw was Dick and Alfred.
"How long have I been..." Dick cuts him off and said, "Seven hours."
He tries to get up but was in a strait jacket. "Damian. If those animals get their hands on him..."
"I've been out there Bruce. There's no sign of him." Dick proclaimed.
"I'll help you." Bruce stated.
"You're no help to anyone in your current state, sir. You need rest."
"No!" Bruce tried to get up but both Alfred and Dick held him down.
"You don't understand I have to find him. He's my son." Bruce proclaimed.
Unfortunately, they were so busy about the hallucinating Dark Knight that no one noticed that a certain red hooded huntress has been missing from the entire manor for a while.
With Ruby...
Ruby grunts as she follows the signal on Damian's tracker.
After Dick had returned with a hallucinating Batman. She was scared about what they might do to Damian and so she decided to search for him.
But as she followed the signal, she realized that she was heading down the same path that Batman went down.
Luckily, because of her immunity to most poisons she was safe from the same toxin that they gave the Dark Knight.
She groans at the smell of the sewer and pinches her nose. "Ugh, this is disgusting. Somebody is going to pay for this." She muttered as she goes down the same path Batman did.
Once she came across the wall, she touches a brick and the door opens.
But when a did a Talon was waiting for her.
She gasped and took a step back.
"Uh oh." she muttered nervously.
With Robin...
Robin looks up at the Grandmaster as he stands with Talon.
"Talon. Introduced your protégé."
Talon walks a few steps forward "It is an honor to present this boy to the Court." He looks at Robin "I've seen firsthand that he has greatness within him and a grand destiny ahead." Talon proclaimed.
"Perhaps that Is so. But we must be certain of his loyalty." The Grandmaster proclaimed.
"You have my word." Robin said and bowed.
"We are the Court of Owls and we require more than words." The Grandmaster proclaimed.
"Your mask."
Robin lightly flinched at that and contemplated if he should take off his mask.
Talon looks at him "Robin."
"So much for your loyalty. Toss the brat back in the gutter where you found him." Grandmaster ordered.
"Wait!" Talon said and walks over to the Boy Wonder.
"Robin, we discussed this." He said.
Robin sighs and takes off his mask and the Grandmaster looked at him in shock.
"The boy. Bruce Wayne's Ward." He said.
Damian looks at him in shock "How did you-"
"That means Wayne is- Batman." Samantha said in realization.
Damian's eyes widen in shock knowing that this is taking a turn for the worst.
"No! no, you're wrong. He..." he tried to walk forward but steel bars come up from the floor and surrounded him and ultimately trapping him as the closed at the top.
Damian tries break out, but they were too strong for them.
"This changes everything. Imagine how deeply we can hurt the Batman. Break his heart and his will by killing this boy." Grandmaster said maliciously.
Talon objected to this and said, "No, he's supposed to take my place in the ritual."
"He's-"
"You lied to me. Batman was right. You were just using to..."
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Talon yelled.
"I swear to you, we'll find a replacement. Now kill him."
"Yes, Grandmaster."
Some of the bars opened given Damian the opening he needed to jump out.
But Talon just pushed him back in and was about to kill him when he started to see himself in the boy.
And it was at this moment that Red literally came crashing in.
She grunts as she rolls and stops a few feet away from Damian's cell.
"Red!?" Damian exclaimed in shock.
Said girl groans and tried to look at him but she was really dizzy from the hits she took from the Talon guard.
She rubs her head "Ow. That hurt." She muttered.
"Ruby Rose, I presume?"
The Huntress gasped at her name being spoken and looked up at the Grandmaster "How does he-"
"I don't know. He somehow knows me as well. " Damian proclaimed.
Ruby looks down, this doesn't make any sense, no one outside the Batfamily know about they're existence.
All except...The Huntress gasped, "Samantha Vanaver." She said out loud.
Damian looks at her in confusion when it finally hit him what she meant when he saw the way she was staring at the Grandmaster.
But he didn't have time to think as the Talon guard from before kicked Ruby right in the head, knocking her out.
The Talon Guard then puts his foot on her back and waited for the Grandmaster to give the order to end her.
"Talon, change of plans. I want you to kill the girl first." Grandmaster proclaimed.
Once Samantha uttered those words, the entire world stopped around Damian, it was deathly silent and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his fast beating heart.
"NO!!" He exclaimed as he tried to get out, but Talon pushed back in and he quickly makes his way towards Ruby.
The cell bars went back up and Damian could only watch as Talon got closer.
"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH A HAIR ON HER HEAD!!" He yelled as he tried to get out of his prison, but it was useless.
The Boy wonder started to cry helplessly as he kept trying to get out, becoming more frantic by the second.
He was so busy with trying to break free that he didn't notice that his body started to radiate a dark green aura, but it flickered and disappeared a few seconds later.
Stopping just a few inches away from the girl Talon raises his sword and was ready to strike her.
But hearing Damian's pleas to stop and looking at how helpless Red looked reminded him of how helpless he was when he was forced to watch as his father beat Evangelina to death.
Growling he cuts off the head of the Talon Guard and then jumps up to the Grandmaster.
But before his feet landed, he threw a few kunai at the members and killed a few of them.
That made the members freak out and make a run for it.
Landing on the Grandmaster's desk he stood straight up and looked down at her.
"Run."
The leader of the Court of Owls made a run for it and tried to open the doors but unfortunately the doors were locked.
It was a precaution that the Grandmaster made just in case any member decided to defect in the middle of a meeting.
But now the Grandmaster realize that type of precaution might as well be their undoing.
One by one, Talon killed every single member until only Samantha was left.
Speaking of which said Grandmaster managed to find a door that was unlocked and went through them.
Closing them, she locked the door but that did her no good as Talon creates a hole with his sword.
Back away from the door, Samantha could only watch as Talon made the hole in the door bigger and bigger until he was able to get inside.
Samantha back away some more until her back hits the wall. "What have you done?" she said horrified.
Talon takes off his mask and throws on the floor and stabs one of the glass eyes with his sword.
"I'm not one of you. Never have been. Never will be." He proclaimed.
"That boy and me, we crawled out of the same gutter." He added and reaches out and takes her mask off.
"Talon, my darling, forget them. The two of us can..."
Talon takes off her hood, "The two of us? Oh, my sweet Samantha." He leans forward and kissed her.
He then stops and moves his mouth to her ear.
"There won't be the two of us. You see, I don't really love you, the only person that I will ever love is my sweet Evangelina. I was just using you to get over the pain. But it never did any good." He said.
That broke Samantha into a million piece, all the fear that she had felt was now gone and now she only felt cold and numb.
Her heart became heavy as she tried telling herself that he was lying and that this wasn't happening. But no matter how hard she tried she knew what he said was telling the truth.
She was just a stress reliever for him, a meaningless toy that he finally grew bored of and decided to throw away.
She then grunts in pain when Talon stabbed her in the stomach with his claws.
"And be honest. You would have done the same to me." He said.
Samantha looked at him helplessly, as her body started to lose more and more strength.
She tried to stay strong by giving him a look of indifference as she accepts her fate, but she couldn't, the feeling of utter betrayal of her former lover and the sorrow that everything her family has worked for was ruined was too strong.
Especially since all that hard work was destroyed by one of the Courts own Talons, a soldier they practically bred to be eternally loyal to the court.
She falls to her hands and knees; she screams in anguish and regret that she wasted 14 years on a man that never loved her and was just using her as a means to deal with the loss of his first love.
And now here she is dying on the floor with the knowledge that because of her foolishness, it has cost her and the court everything.
But at the same time, she started to realize that she deserved this, after all ever since he was brought to the court all those years ago multiple members of the court voiced their displeasure of having some orphan with no status joining their cause.
But she refused to listen because of her falling in love with him. And just like her father, she believed that Talon was destined for greatness.
What a fool she was for not heeding their warnings.
Finally losing all her strength, Samantha fell onto her side and just laid there broken and staring off into space with tears rolling down her face and was unresponsive to anything as her world started to turn black.
Meanwhile back at the meeting room Damian put his mask back and has been trying to reach his fallen utility belt, but it was just a few inches out of his reach.
"I've just sacrificed a world for you, Robin." Talon said walking over to him.
"Now what will you sacrifice for me?" he asked.
Damian glared at him "You're insane."
Talon kneels "I won't ask you to betray him any further," he grabs the cell bars "But Bruce Wayne is a complication." He said as he grabs the boy's hands through the bars.
"He has to be dealt with." And with that he pulled the Boy Wonder towards him.
Making his head hit the bars and knocking him out cold.
And when he woke up, he found himself in a pod inside the white room with the dark red pedestals. He tried to punch it, but the glass was super tough.
And unfortunately for him, it started to flood with the resurrection water.
Talon walks over and looks down, "You both will be safe here till I'm done."
"Do you think you can stop him alone?" Damian questioned.
"Who's says I'm alone?" Talon said and then walks over to a control panel and makes the red pedestals open up revealing that they're in fact the top of the Talon's Soldiers pods.
Awaking from their slumber all the Talon Soldiers get out and once they were all dressed and ready, they left to deal with the Dark Knight.