Catch of the Day [Oracle]

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When stalking your prey it is imperative that you remember that the creature will always be one of habit, susceptible to natural desires and patterns as much as any other living being. Without giving cause for the beast to deviate from its set routine it will see no need to cover its tracks or stay down wind as it will never be aware that it is being watched. No matter what natural defences it will have, the animal will be the prey of its own repeating routine, much like a certain Barbara Gordon. Such a sweet girl, memories of her warm exuberance flickered in Jason's helmet encased mind for the briefest of moments. He was never sentimental or naïve enough to believe that she was anything close to a sister, merely that she was just another orphan at the World's most twisted circus show. Now it was curtains down, it was time for Red Hood to take his bow.

During his excommunication to the coffin the Dark Knight's lack of compassion and foresight had cost him yet another asset, his dear Batgirl who had served him on many an operation. But as she lay on the blood stained floor, numbed from the waist down from a shot served to the spine by the monster he should have executed when he had the chance. How many children will be broken in the name of the Batman, in the name of a so called Man who can't end the life of the worst monster in existence. If all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing then Jason was ready to make the sacrifice, and that meant removing the lie of the Bat and his followers. Through Oracle's sacrifice freedom will be granted to the slaves of the myth.

There were many ways to cross Gotham in the evening, though for the driver there was only one true avenue which could ensure your arrival on time, even if there was a hefty concession charge. But two mile long Gaines Tunnel which ran under the expensive and glamorous Saunders District offered the perfect opportunity for Todd's daring move. For the past four weeks Jason had been paying a few local vagrants to follow Oracle, to watch her comings and goings from the Watchtower. As always she was forever caught in a tangle of work, vigilante or other wise but some how she always found time to visit her father, the great Commissioner Gordon. Most Sundays she would go and spend time with him, no doubt talk about their mundane and pointless existences before departing for another week of selfish indulgence. Perhaps their little father/daughter talks allowed them to keep their sanity amidst the tide of filth they are forced to step on. Jason didn't know and frankly he didn't care, all Babs was to him was an objective, a target to be acquired before the next stage of his master plan could move into effect.

Leaning on his parked night black motorbike, Jason sat in a side alley with one of his desert eagles pressed in the palm of his gloved hand. Hopefully he wouldn't be forced to use it, certainly not on Batgirl or Oracle or whatever title she awarded herself. Ironic that the person who knows all will have never seen this coming, fitting in a sadistic sort of way. This train of thought was cut short by the hum of the cheap mobile phone in his trouser pocket. Flicking the case open, he saw through eyes of steel and glass the electronic message which simply said: Passing down onto 5th and main towards Gaines Tunnel, with a small message of the van attached below. With a swift twist of his wrist he broke the phone in two, throwing it under his boot before mounting the chopper. Red Hood had a car to intercept.

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The blue Volkswagen Beetle strutted slowly down Main Street and stopped at the light that leads her down the Gaines tunnel over to the connecting bridge to South Gotham. Barbara Gordon was heading to her father’s house. Unlike most cripples, Babs was doing her best to be a functioning human, and she hated public transportation; she had only wished that her father lived closer to the Clocktower. It was good this way, she didn’t want him to be too close; otherwise it just might be too easy for him to catch on what kind of work she was up to.

The Beetle was carved out; all the seats were taken out to make room for her wheelchair, ramp, locks, and custom hand powered controls that would allow her to drive the old vehicle without the use of her legs for gas and breaks. It had other technology installed in it as well, but nothing too impressive as a supercomputer in the back, like her van, which she still had yet a name to give it.

Barbara sat watching the cars go by, her left hand tapping away at the steering wheel. She was never herself, not when she visited dear old dad. The redhead would put on a new face for him, just to assure him that she was doing okay and not fighting depression. She sat in a wheelchair with no tech on it; she didn’t want him to see all the control panels that didn’t have anything to do with the moving or adjusting the chair. It even had handles on the back, which she was always against.

The light turned green, and Barbara pushed the car up to thirty-five miles an hour. Into the rabbit hole.

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Dancing his booted heel upon the clutch as his fingers strangled the throttle into a deafening death rattle, the hooded Cyclist tore rubber as he forced the bike out into a stream of traffic towards the Gaines Bridge underpass, weaving through rows of by comparison Detroit engine scrap heaps. His movements were not random, forced at a moments notice by a change in traffic, they were precise and controlled anticipations of his surrounding. Like a shark moving with the current at its rear fin for extra speed when moving in for the kill, Jason caught his first sight of the Van, his wounded seal clawing its way to a certain watery death. Barbara had just passed the toll booth, entering his trap and Todd was short of change so he would have to gun it to pass the barrier without alerting her, for this to work he needed her deep in the bowls of the tunnel so that there would be no escape.

By the time that he had rolled down the approaching avenue her Van had sunk into the darkness of the Tunnel but finding her would be no trouble. A portly man in a grey jacket sat in the toll booth sat on the road side by the entrance, flicking through a local magazine. With a yawn and flick of his wrist he would signal for the next vehicle to drive on by yet as he leaned over his vast gut to bring his sour coffee to his haggard lips a soaring engine that sounded like it was tapping the sound barrier rocketed under the closing gate, shocking the heart out of his chest. "Jesus, Mary, what the-!" All he could clasp eyes on was the fading rear break light that burst as the Red Hood moved it between two moving vehicles. A more rational tactician might wonder what exactly his plan was once he caught up to her Van, as a motorbike was rarely used for such illegal activities due to the lack of passenger seats. However a quick getaway was what he needed and this would offer it, not that she was going to be too much of a challenge to apprehend and restrain. If he couldn't capture a cripple then he could never dream of taking down the Bat.

Overhanging lights bounced past like shooting stars as the aluminium horse galloped further into the underpass, overtaking every other vehicle until it was only three cars behind the Van. From his thigh strapped holster he pulled out one of his pistols, though decided to keep it hidden down behind the main body of the bike as he accelerated next to her car. With a slight glance he looked over to her, that geek who always made him smile even if he'd swear other wise. Memories of her trying to teach him the finer points of cryptology evolved into a failed attempt to hotwire the Batwing. With her brains and his experience, why the hell not? How things change, or rather how lies will always emerge sooner or later. How could Bruce use children to indoctrinate other adolescents? It was sick and it had to stop. Look where it got her, a broken existence hooked eternally to the Batman who shot the wound through her young life. "Forgive me, Babs." Of course she wouldn't hear him, but it wasn't for her. Clawing at the throttle, Jason continued up in front of her before weaving over to the other side of the road so that he could get a clear shot. Flexing his finger upon the trigger that fired the pistol aimed directly at one of her front wheels. Not enough to kill.

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Barbara caught a glimpse of the culprit, his engine roaring loudly through the walls of the pass. The truck in front of her, cars behind her beeping and honking at the maniac motorist zipped past them at dangerous speeds. Her car wasn’t the type to get into a high octane race; it was the kind of car teenage girls got for high school graduation presents, having class of ’05 bumper stickers and written in soap on the rear window.

There wasn’t enough time to process everything that was going on at that moment; feeling her wheel jerk to the right as the tire blew out, the front wheel drive vehicle screeched and slammed into the car in the lane next to her. The car behind her crashed into her rear as she came to a halt; the seatbelts, the wheel locks, all the things to keep her safe in the old vehicle didn’t seem to be working. The only thing that did happen was the airbags deploying. Shooting out and smacking her face, the beetle was now facing the opposing traffic, which all the other cars thankfully came to a stop.

The assailant now on the opposite side of her car, Barbara had little time to react. The only thing she had were escrima sticks, they didn’t even have a charge on them. She crawled out of her wrecked wheelchair—thankfully it too was a simple no tech variant—and onto the street. Blood trickled down her forehead and down past her eyes, temporarily obscuring her vision.

“You could have just asked me to pull over.” She said coughing from the smoke and dust that hadn’t quite settled.

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With a deafening screech and burn of tire, the motorcycle was suddenly brought to a shuddering stop a few meters out of range of any VW beetle shrapnel that flew from the vehicle as it ploughed into the next lane. With his boot, Jason flicked the kick stand on the motorbike down as he began to lift himself off of the black beast and onto the road which was illuminated by the flickering headlights of her now totalled car. A few meters behind the two damaged cars a row of other commuters began to build up with the number of waiting automobiles increasing as a stream of headlights burned through the tunnel accompanied by an orchestra of horns blaring to show their anger for being stopped not compassion for those involved in the accident. No on looker even bothered to get out to check out the situation, their frustrated faces looked on from behind their safety glass windshields in a mix of shock and amusement. Jason could only theorise that they lived for the thrill of danger, for the love of the sport, why else would they have suffered it for so long?

Taking a few paces towards the wrecked piece of German engineering that was once her cute little about town motor, he clasped eyes on the Girl with the fiery hair, dust covered and spitting sparks of blood from the impact. He could not deny the feeling of satisfaction which burned with in him upon seeing a prestigious member of the elite Bat Family brought to her knees. The idiots in the other cars might not realise the significance of this injured girl but Jason did. Legends don't bleed and stay as lore for long. It just had to be Barbara who fell first, few carried the same emotional connection amongst allies as what she did, the taking of her would carry a strong resonance in the house of the Bat. Furthermore as Wayne's chief source of information it was wise to see rid of her before she could put those analytical skills to work against his good work. Still holding his pistol in the palm of his glove, Jason expected no trouble from her. "Not my style." It had been over a year since he'd last spoken to her and a lot had changed since then, there was no chance of her guessing that a dead friend was the one behind the gleaming helmet.

With a wave of his other hand he tried to clear a bit of the smoke around them before continuing, kneeling down slightly so that he could talk directly to her. "You're coming with me and we're going to have a nice chat, hell you might even enjoy it, I'm a nice guy really." At this point he levelled the gun towards her, aiming the barrel down between her eyes to the bridge of her nose. Noticing the sticks that lay within reach, he vented a quick tutting noise before cocking the weapon, he didn't want to see her make any stupid moves. "Comprende?"

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The thing about having an eidetic memory--or perfect memory recall--is that you don't just remember events. You remember everything. Lights. Sounds. Smells. Feelings. As the smoke billowed and curled, it wrapped around her assailant, his voice masked by the horns and his bright red helmet.

But she knew.

She knew the moment that the man spoke, Barbara knew who he was. Imagine the look of shock on her face as she heard the voice of ghosts come back to single her out. He was inches away from Barbara's face, there was no doubt about it. The only thing that made her question who he was, was the simple disbelief and shock from the crash.

"Jason..?!"

He then pointed the gun in her face; he wouldn't do that, but then again, it's been a long time. A little over a year, and his voice hasn't changed too much. Lights, sounds, every little detail. She scowled at him, sitting herself up, knowing that he wasn't going to pull the trigger, Barbara gently pushed the gun aside.

"Get that out of my face, Todd." She demanded in a cough, as her vision was coming to. "I don't mind talking with you, but if you're going to be pointing guns at me, we're going to have a problem."

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Jason insisted with the gun by forcefully moving it back towards her, in fact this time he edged it ever the more closer, lining up the barrel with one of her eyes so she could get a good look at the business end of the weapon. If she placed a finger on the gun again she'd get a boot firmly placed into the side of her lovely face; killing wasn't in the plan but he had no dilemma about using force to motivate her. "You heard it here first, Babs but touch anything of mine again without my say so and you'll wish you stayed in that wheelchair, understand?" Whatever gets her to shut up and listen, he didn't care. "We've already got a problem and it's called Batman, you remember him don't you? Not a great father, not a great hero but don't you worry we'll take care of him and his little boy scouts soon enough." It was easier for Barbara to defend him, she hadn't experienced the true extent of his all encompassing expectation and influence. At the end of the day she could go back to loving Jim and forget about the torturous regime imposed by the Dark Knight but for students such as Jason who had no such other home, there was no end to it.

Internal ranting focus was broken by the opening of a car door behind the wreckage and the interruption of a rare do gooder member of Gotham City. A hefty figure of a man, late 50s probably, climbed from a red pick up truck before taking a step forward in an attempt to offer his services. "Hey you guys alright? Ambulance is coming." Jason didn't bother rewarding the courtesy of meeting his eye line, he merely lifted the gun from Barbara to the approaching man, letting the threat of a pistol do all the necessary talking. The civilian took the hint and quickly dived back into his vehicle. "Sorry now where we were? You were coming with me." In a single movement Todd managed to bend down and pick Oracle up by swinging her up with a fireman's lift over his shoulder. Her slight frame made her easy enough to carry, even if she did try and make it as awkward as possible for him.

If she had any sense she wouldn't struggle too much as after all an unconscious hostage is just as useful to him. Moving towards the bike, Jason lowered her down onto the back section of the seat while attaching a harness around her waste for safety reasons of course before he too saddled up.

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Barbara rolled her eyes, as Jason buckled her in the seat. Still shell shocked from this new revelation. She was certain if Bruce had known that Jason was back, he would have told her. No. He was planning something big, and she was just a part of it. "C'mon Jason. I know how to buckle my own seat belt." She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him before he took his own seat in front of her. What a dork.

The redhead wrapped her arms around Jason's waist, clutching tightly as he took off. He was wild, off his rocker. Of all the things now going on through her mind it was odd that she was trying to find out a way how to explain this to her father. "Oh yes, on the way to your house for crackers and coffee, when my tire was shot out by an old friend from the grave. He held me at gunpoint and forced me to come with him in order to exact revenge on multi-billionaire Bruce Wayne. So that's why I couldn't make it over last Sunday, sorry daddy." Barbara moaned in agony at the mere thought of it.

Her head was tucked between her shoulders and his back, as she watched the road speed by her, Barbara wasn't sure if he could hear her over the wind, but she wanted to try anyway. "Jason." She yelled over the wind, "I wish we could have at least reunited on different terms." Barbara did miss him. She couldn't stand it whenever someone died in her circle, Barbara remembered the tears she shed for everyone. They weren't just agents, or blinking dots on her map, they were her friends. So when one of her dead friends shows up like this, it broke her heart.

"It's a real shame, Todd. It's a real shame."