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“You can’t be seriously thinking about this! He’s a criminal” The speaker was a random uniform, either not old enough or not skilled enough to make detective, just a beat cop. Jason couldn’t help his eye roll, not that anyone could see it with his Hood on.
“If you don’t want my help you can go back to getting your asses kicked, Crime Alley is plenty of work as it is.” Jason said nonchalantly. He had tons of work organizing CA and all its inhabitants, keeping them fed, fighting and the barricades up, he really didn’t need to add the rest of the city to his list. But as a favor to Commissioner Gordan he’d shown up at the meeting with the mayor and other ‘important’ people.
Two weeks ago, the aliens had arrived, and in a well-choreographed move they had landed one ship per big city on the planet. Then they erected a dome shield around the city, cutting it off from all outside help. They had cut Jason off from the rest of the family who had been in Bristol celebrating Steph’s birthday, he’d been late, her present was still sitting in his living room, waiting. All he had was his brains, the people of his neighborhood, some severely pissed off rogues and Oracle, who had also been late to the party.
Luckily communications weren’t down. Unfortunately, Kryptonian superpowers couldn’t break through, nor could Amazonian strength or even the Flash’s weird vibrating thing, nothing could get through those fucking shields. No help was coming, and now the mayor was asking him to take on the security of all of Gotham.
“No!” The mayor hastened to blurt out glaring at the officer, “we’d like you help, what you’ve done with Crim- Park Row is nothing short of a miracle, with the Bat’s out of bounds you’re our only hope.” Jason could see it was hard for her to admit and he did kind of enjoy her struggle, but needs must, so he quickly put her out of her misery.
“I want a full pardon, and I’ll need police cooperation, my plans don’t work if we’re fighting each other instead of the aliens.” The mayor was nodding along, as was Gordon. “I’ve been working with the rogues in Crime Alley, they’ve been invaluable, so no trying to arrest them while we’re at war.” Gordon grimaced but nodded.
“That all sounds very doable, I’ll write up your pardon immediately, keep in mind it’s only valid for past crimes, and of course whatever must be done to get rid of the aliens, it won’t give you carte blanche in the future.” The mayor warned him. Jason nodded.
“I’ll see you all first thing in the morning, I’ve got to get my scouts out there tonight, get the lay of the land.” He turned from the table and made to walk out, his shoulder was grabbed before he could, his body tensed.
“Hood, thank you, really,” Gordon said, and removed his hand, all Jason could do was nod again before leaving. He had always wondered if Gordon really knew who they were, maybe with all this extra soon to be bonding time he’d reveal if he did or not.
Jason traversed the city, slipping from alley to alley, keeping to the darkness and shadows, even going down to the sewers when the enemy presence became too thick to get through. He made it back to the Alley and scaled a building instead of making anyone remove pieces of the barricade for him. That had proven to be dangerous as the aliens always seemed to try and strike when they let anyone through. He strolled down the streets, oddly enough feeling safer here than in the upscale district he’d just come from.
Everyone he saw was armed, the lucky ones had guns, but most had improvised weapons, bats, crowbars, hammers, even the occasional table leg or cast-iron frying pan could be seen strapped to backs or hips.
He had tons to do tonight, his first stop was his place, filled with refugees, mostly his men, and some older kids, the younger ones had been distributed to safe houses.
“Alright,” he addressed the throng, “I need volunteers,” hands went up, “don’t volunteer until I’ve told you what I need,” he sighed, hands went down. “I need volunteers to case the city, spy out enemy locations and movements, we’re moving this operation Gotham wide.” There was an outbreak of murmuring. “If you still want to volunteer, meet me over to the right.”
Like he figured, nearly the whole crowd shifted to the right. His people had tasted a little bit of victory and it had gone to their heads, he just hoped they wouldn’t be so cocky as to get caught. He sent a runner to fetch his big map of Gotham and he tacked it up to the wall. He put Miss Li in charge of giving each scout a portion of the city to map out.
Li had defected from Black Mask not long after the siege started; she had sought him out after seeing him organize the Alley to fight. Miss Li was a survivor of quality, and knew where the safety was. She was also a top-notch organizer and Crime Alley was better off because of her efforts.
He stayed long enough to see his orders beginning to be filled then slipped back out to the streets. He’d need more men for tomorrow, well organized ones, and he knew right where to get them.
“Oswald,” Jason greeted the man warmly. He’d never like the Penguin, not really, but they had worked together wonderfully so far.
“Hood, to what do we owe your presence?”
“Cutting right to the chase tonight, I like it,” Jason replied, making Oswald roll his beady little eyes. “I need men for a mission tomorrow, mostly training related and all kitted with guns.”
“This have anything to do with you meeting with the Mayor tonight?” the nosey flightless bird asked.
“Might be, looks like we’ll be branching out.” Jason commented.
“Nothing that would jeopardize our safety here though, right?”
“No, I don’t need that many men, we’ll still have a full armada, I wouldn’t hurt the Alley, not for the whole state, much less a bunch of hoity toities who can’t seem to defend themselves.” Jason said truthfully. Penguin nodded like he expected nothing else, he’d seen firsthand what Jason would do for Crime Alley and its people.
“I’ll have the men and the guns ready for you first thing in the morning, or is this a night trip?”
“The morning’s great, we’re going for a different strategy, can’t get too predictable can we?” Penguin gave a blood curdling laugh, Jason had to restrain his shivers, Oswald was so creepy sometimes. Jason excused himself shortly after that, he still had two more places to hit before he could catch some sleep.
The trip to see Poison Ivy was simple, check on her garden, she was keeping most of the Alley fed. Pam was happy to be recognized for her talents and most of the Alley’s residents were singing her praises. They had gone over food stores, starvation was more likely to kill them now, rather than the aliens. Jason estimates that so long as it wasn’t destroyed by riots the city had enough food for two months if it was rationed. And Pam might be able to feed the Alley but she couldn’t feed all of Gotham. Jason tried to shake off the stress before his next destination.
“Waylon, you home?” Jason hollered as he stood in the sewers, he’d been overjoyed when he found out Killer Croc hadn’t been in Arkham during the invasion. It would have been a waste if he’d been killed with the other inmates. Panicked guards and a riot led by the Joker had seen most of the inmates dead, Jason hadn’t mourned the Joker whatsoever, but not all the inmates deserved their fates.
“Here Hood,” a yell echoed back to him. Jason found the man in the back of his area, working on the map of the sewers that he kept for Jason and the others.
“I need your help Waylon,” Jason started, he was waved off by the other.
“You have it.”
“You haven’t even heard what I need,” Jason said in a confused voice.
“You’ve never asked me for anything I can’t or won’t do. I don't expect you to start now.” Waylon said dismissively, Jason was honestly touched by the trust he was putting in him.
“We’re branching out to the rest of the city,” Jason paused for a reaction but aside from a head tilt there was none. “I’d like you to lead a group through the sewers for surprise strikes.”
“Done.” Jason shook his head.
“You’d be leading cops this time,” this got his attention. “I’ve already spoken with Gordon, his men know to work with you and take your orders, something I will be reinforcing tomorrow.” Jason assured him.
“Like I said, done.” Jason clapped him on the shoulder in thanks before finally heading home, he’d wanted to see Barbie tonight but he needed some food and rest if he was going out in the morning. He’d check in with her in the morning.
“Good morning beautiful,” Jason called as he slipped into Barbie’s safehouse. One of the first things they’d done after settling the riots, was to get Oracle underground, the Clocktower was too noticeable and too unsecure. So Barbara and all of her equipment was settled in a secret, secure place in the Alley. The second thing was to get the solar generator set up, Oracle needed connection to do her stuff, and he needed Oracle.
“Morning handsome,” Barbie responded from the kitchen.
“Oh Barbie, I’m blushing, how’s my favorite crime fighter this morning?”
“Great, I had a real breakthrough last night, I can feel it, I’m so close to cracking the code. We could have them gone in the next week.” While he’d been keeping the city together Oracle had been working on bringing down the shielding from the inside.
“Then all we’ll have to do is get it on the ship,” Jason sighed, that would be his job. “I’m never complaining about teamwork again after this.” What Jason wouldn’t give for just one member of the family to help him, hell he’d even take Bruce about now.
“I heard from dad, he said the meeting with Red Hood went well yesterday.” Barbara said clearly fishing for information. Jason grinned at her.
“Of course it went well, I’m nothing if not a gentleman,” that got a little laugh out of Barbie. “I agreed, got myself a pardon out of it, that’s why I’m here so early, gotta gather the forces and head over soon.”
“And here I thought you were early hoping to catch me in my nightgown.” Barbara joked, elbowing him gently.
“Anytime, anywhere, just say the word.” Jason said, with only a little too much honesty before getting up to head out.
“Hey, Jay,” Jason turned back to her, eyebrow arched in question, “be careful out there.”
“Always Barbie,” he told her with a two fingered salute as he strolled out.
He arrived to the barricades in chaos, though it was organized chaos. Several of the aliens' vehicles, sleek armored tanks that looked reminiscent of Humvees, were outside the barricades, soldiers posted up around them. Ready to attack in the early dawn light. Jason just stopped to watch the drama unfold.
Old cooking oil, liberated from Bat Burger, poured out of windows, splashing over the vehicles and soldiers both, followed by makeshift Molotov cocktails, the cars and a few aliens went up in a fireball. The enemy screamed as they fled from their vehicles on fire, from behind them, unnoticed the manhole cover was casually tossed aside and a swarm of people came out.
Bullets were in short supply so they were using improvised weapons. Mostly heavy bats, or grabbing the alien’s guns and turning them against them. Honey, a former corner girl had a thick broken bottle she was forcing through eye sockets, she was vicious, he loved it. Just as quickly as they arrived, they fled back to the sewers, and Jason slipped down to street level to catch them when they came back up.
“Brilliant job everyone,” he praised as they made their way back inside, cheers went up. “Loved your work with the bottle Honey, very creative.” The young woman glowed with the praise and smiled brightly up at him.
Once inside he was pulled away by Miss Li, who had the map fully annotated from the night’s adventures. He folded it up carefully, he’d need it soon. He did his best to memorize most of it first, he’d come up with his plans on the way to the meet up, finalize them later.
He met up with Penguins men and Waylon near their common extraction point.
“We’re going sewers to get to our meet up, there’s too many of us to take the streets.” He heard some groaning but no one said a word against him.
Jason pinned his map down to the moveable whiteboard, and smoothed it out.
“My scouts came back just last night so our info is fresh. The enemy has five main camps, three downtown, West Harlow, Stevensburgh, and Haysville, plus a minimal force outside the Narrows, one dead center of Midtown and one in North City Park, Uptown, that’s where the ship is. We leave that alone for now, not enough cover for our tactics.” The men around him all nodded and studied the map intently.
They hadn’t liked the addition of Penguin’s men, and had all tensed up at the addition of Waylon, Killer Croc’s reputation preceded him. But no one had been brave enough to make a complaint, especially with Commissioner Gordon glaring over their shoulders.
“We’ll split our forces into three, West Harlow, Haysville and Midtown. I need your best shots split in two for Harlow and Haysville, we have great cover there. They’ve made camp between two high rises, we get into the buildings, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.” More nodding. “Midtown is a little harder, Waylon here,” he tapped on Killer Croc’s shoulder, “will lead a group into the sewers, as you can see here they’ve settled in between two alleys, each alley has a manhole, we come out there and attack from each side. Be careful with your guns, take a shot if you know you have it, but you risk hitting our men on the other side. The Midtown group will go in mostly with melee weapons, machetes, long knives, batons or whatever you’ve got.”
Jason finished up explaining his plans. While there was some suspicion still lingering in the cops’ eyes, they all looked rather gung ho about getting started.
“They’ll call in reinforcements, so this is guerilla attack, get in kill as many as you can and get the fuck back out, don’t stick around. Hopefully this coordinated attack will confuse them and spread their reinforcements thin. It’ll keep them scrambling long enough for us to get up some barricades around other important parts of town and rescue our primary targets.” He and Gordon had already decided where to place the new barricades and which targets were to be protected. He wished it were his men going out on the rescue mission but Gordon had insisted that his men knew the area better, so Jason bowed out of the argument gracefully. He would provide excellent distraction.
Gordon split his men up, as requested placing his best shots in two groups, Jason split his men, Waylon of course in charge of the sewer group, Antonio, Penguins long time head bodyguard, in charge of the Haysville group and he himself took the West Harlow group.
“Alright let's get this done, it’ll take Waylon’s group the longest time to get in place, so it’s 1214 now, set your watches we attack at 1330.” The teams all dispersed with that, Jason looked around at his temporary men.
“Everyone ready?” Nods all around. “Ammo is precious these days so do your best to make every bullet count.”
In the end it really was like shooting fish in a barrel, they set up in empty apartment buildings facing each other, the hardest part was getting in the buildings without being seen by enemy patrols. But Jason was old hand by now at sneaking and got everyone settled right away.
The engagement lasted only minutes, they shot up the encampment, took down as many fucking aliens as they could, dodged the returning fire, and got the hell out before reinforcements came. They made it back to the building the police were using as a makeshift headquarters unscathed, the Haysville team met them shortly after, in a similar condition.
It took Waylon’s group a while to come back and when they did it was with bad news, while Waylon had been hit with one of their stun guns they’d gotten him out, four others hadn’t been as lucky. They weren’t dead, the aliens for some reason didn’t kill very often, preferring to just stun and take the prisoners to their ship.
Jason suspected experimentation and study, that or slavery. Either way they wouldn’t be there long, when Jason went to upload Oracle’s solution he’d free them.
Aside from a few wounds to the Midtown group it was a rousing success. Gordon had looked proud of him, something he hadn’t seen in the man’s eyes since he was Robin.
Jason gave a few last minute orders, it was time for Gordon’s men to act as scouts, and update the map, then he took his men back to Crime Alley.
A runner was waiting for him on the barricade, not an unusual occurrence.
“Oracle wanted to see you as soon as you got back.” The little girl told him he had found that using girls as runners worked better than boys, they bragged less and did their jobs quickly and most importantly- quietly.
“Thanks kid, I’m off to see her now,” the girl beamed at him and scampered off.
It didn’t take him long to make it to Barbie, and when he arrived it was to an overjoyed Oracle.
“I did it, Jay, I did it!” She crowed while doing a little dance in her chair.
“You finished the virus!” He nearly shouted. She nodded expansively. “Fuck right, I knew you could do it Barbie.” He dipped down to crush her in a hug, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“Now all you’ve got to do is upload it,” she said, handing him a small device. “Wireless transmitter,” she told him at his questioning look. “I have no idea what kind of connections they’ll have but press that button on the top and the virus will upload to anything within 10 feet of it. I made three, for redundancy’s sake.” That was code for in case he failed and someone else had to step in. Jason refused to fail so they wouldn’t be needed.
It took them several days to orchestrate the attack on the ship. It would be a five-prong attack, each encampment of aliens being attacked individually. They would have to fight for longer, needing to cause enough of a distraction for Jason and his smaller group to get aboard the ship. Jason had given them wire and explosives to make trip wires for incoming reinforcements, that should keep the aliens off their backs.
Barbie had hailed the Justice League and let them know of their plan, told them to get ready for the shields to fall, they had no idea how long they’d be down for. Bruce had sounded particularly emotionally constipated when he told Jason to be careful.
So now here they were. His team of thirty had split into five, and were to approach from all different directions. They waited for the large mass to mobilize heading out to where the others were attacking. Jason hoped for everyone’s safety, and success, especially his own.
He had a device, as did his second in command, the third had gone to Commissioner Gordon with instructions to call Oracle if more were needed. If he failed they’d keep fucking trying until they ran out of people, Jason was sure of it.
He ducked and dodged out of the way of enemy fire, they were still using stun beams, and if all fails and he’s hit, they’ll take him onboard the ship and he could still activate the virus. The aliens seemed to understand that the main objective was to get onboard the ship because suddenly the open hatch was closing. Shit! Jason hadn’t anticipated that.
He and two of his men made it at the last second, jumping and diving then rolling off the hatch as soon as possible.
“Okay,” Jason started as soon as he’d caught his breath and pulled his men into the shelter of a shadowy hallway that encircled the main hall. “You two find the prisoners, I’ll upload the virus, stay safe.” The men just nodded before slipping off quietly down the hallway.
“Alright Oracle we’re in, I’ll let you know when I push the button you let me know when we’re successful.”
“Copy,” was the only response.
Jason could see in a distance what looked like computers, each with an alien occupying the space in front of it. They hadn’t turned when the hatch shut and didn’t seem to be alarmed. Jason thanked the universe for that stroke of good luck.
He was loaded for bear, with his trusty AK, and several hand guns, plus a backpack filled with ammo. He knew soon enough the ones outside would come in so he got to work. Hiding in the safety of an offshoot he took aim. As quickly as he could he mowed down the aliens at their computers, a few bullets hit screens but enough was still working for him to use.
He slipped from his hiding spot and stalked through the corridor of computers checking for survivors. A quick as lightning he dropped to the floor, narrowly dodging a beam of light, he didn’t know what had alerted him, just years of instincts. Jason brought up his gun and took care of the threat.
Wasting no time he slid an alien corpse out of its seat and took its spot, he pulled out the virus and placed it on the computer before pressing the button on top.
“Virus activated.”
“Standby.” Jason waited nervously for word that the shield was down. Soon he noticed the still working screens starting to glitch and then everything shut down.
“Shields down,” Oracle said and they were the most beautiful words Jason had ever heard. He made to get up and find his men and the prisoners when his men contacted him.
“Boss, you need to see this,” was all he heard followed by directions.
He made his way through the ship with as much stealth as possible, ducking several times into side corridors, hearing the sound of scrambling alien feet rushing around.
He finally made it to his men and the sight awaiting him nearly made him puke.
It was worse than any torture chamber he’d ever seen, men, women, and dear god, even children were strapped down to tables, each missing limbs, some dead, some screaming, all bloody. Then he noticed where they were. A stove was still a stove, even in space, so were sinks, they were in the kitchens.
The aliens had been capturing people not to experiment on but to eat.
“Oracle this is important, make saving the prisoners in the ships a top priority. Tell the rescuers to steel up their stomachs.”
“Hood what-” Oracle started but he cut her off.
“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know, just believe me we can’t leave them behind.” Jason was looking around, there had to be more people somewhere.
There were, they were being held in pens in the very back of the kitchens, they all skittered back when he approached, but rushed forward when they noticed he was human.
“Okay folks stand back and let me disable the locks,” They were mechanical, not computerized and hadn’t glitched with the rest of the ship. No problem, two shots and they released and the doors opened.
“Hey! No panicking, everyone’s getting out of here, but we need to be quiet about it.” Some of the children were sobbing, he understood. “I need anyone strong enough to help us get out the ones on the tables, no one left behind, not even the bodies.” Several of the men and women volunteered for the gruesome job. Jason got them organized and took point. He handed off some of his guns to the steadier hands, and placed them on the outside of the group.
They made it to the main hall with only one interruption, a small force that Jason had mainly taken care of himself. His big problem was when one of their survivors ran forward and began kicking the body of one of the aliens while screaming abuse. Jason had gotten her calm and under control but it took precious time.
“He was the head ‘chef’, the butcher,” the woman hissed and Jason understood her outburst.
They arrived back in the main hall and Jason pushed every fucking button on the wall until the hatch lowered. They walked out of the ship into chaos.
“Get them out of here!” Jason shouted at his men, who both nodded and began to usher the people across the park as safely as they could amidst gunfire and laser beams.
He took shelter behind the hatch and started firing, taking down as many of the man-eating sons of bitches as he could. His hiding place turned out to be lucky allowing him to take down the reinforcements from within the ship from behind.
He knew soon Batman would be in the city, if he wasn’t already and he’d probably allow the survivors to flee, Jason was going to make sure there were no survivors.
His people were right there with him, shooting to kill, leaving no survivors.
“Li are you there?” Jason asked after switching the channel on his comms.
“Affirmative.”
“How are we holding up?” Jason asked, trying to get a feel for where he was needed.
“Downtown is completely free from incursion, our fighters have moved en masse to Midtown and the ship. Estimates are that Midtown will be freed in twenty minutes.”
“Good,” Jason said viciously, “Send them up here, no prisoners and no survivors, kill with extreme prejudice.”
“Affirmative, I will relay your orders, and execute the prisoners we have gathered. Though, the Batman will not like it.” Li told him, her voice going sly at the end like she already knew his response.
“No one gives a damn about Batman, Miss Li, they’ve been eating them, the prisoners they took, keeping them alive to keep the meat fresh and dissecting them. Batman can go to hell if he thinks I’m letting any one of them return to their homes alive.”
“Affirmative,” Li said in a voice like steel, “no survivors, guaranteed.”
Jason turned off his comms, couldn’t disobey Batman’s orders if he didn’t hear them, and got back to the slaughter. The aliens had stopped using their stun options and were using their lethal settings. Soon however they were overwhelmed by the influx of humans coming from the other zones.
The remaining aliens threw down their weapons. Jason quickly had them lined up and on what passed for their knees. He went down the row putting a bullet in the back of each skull, his people easily caught the ones who tried to run.
By the time they were done Jason was exhausted and covered in alien blood, but Gotham was victorious. Now for the clean up.
The Bat gang finally arrived once the fires were started to burn the alien bodies. Dick was the first to make it to him, and pulled him into one of his big octopus hugs.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore fucking eyes.” Jason said into his shoulder.
“That’s what you get for being late for dinner.” Dick laughed, Jason just shook his head. The others soon piled on the hug.
“You know what?” Jason spoke up from the middle of the hug.
“Hmm?” Dick hummed.
“I think you motherfuckers are in charge of cleaning up, I’m done.”