Hey guys, I hope you guys liked my last chapter, and I'm glad so many of you guys liked a hair braiding Jason.

Also, I'm extremely sorry for taking so long to update this. Schools been kicking my ass lately, and I've tried to find time in between homework and passing out to write this, and I've finally managed to write it all down. I tried to make this a little bit longer to make up for the months I haven't updated.

I also want to thank all the reviewers who have reviewed my story, and I want to say sorry again for not writing sooner.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Nation.

Shiva POV

I glanced calmly at the man in front of me, his hands shaking in terror even as he tried to look like he wasn't two seconds away from pissing himself. "You're Cobra's right hand man, Nick, I know you know where he is. Where is your boss?" I asked, for the tenth time.

"I'm not betraying my boss." He said, his voice quivering as I walked towards him. "You don't know what he'll do to me if I spill."

I chuckled, a smirk spreading across my face as I walked towards him, blood from his fellow companions dripping down my hands. "You're right, I don't, Nick. But I can guarantee you," I said, wrapping my hand around his neck, "that what I will do to you will be much, much worse. And if you start talking, I might consider not pulling out all of your teeth and nails slowly, one. By. One."

Nick started to shake harder, his breath turning harsh and ragged as he started to wheeze. "I-i-i"

"Of course," I grinned, gripping his throat tighter in my hand, "if you don't talk, I might just make your torture long, slow, and painful.'

"Mexico!" Nick shouted, his voice hoarse from shouting with my hand around his neck. "He is in Mexico! In some city called San Andres Cholula! That's all I know!"

I chuckled, digging my nails into the skin of his neck, the man gagging as I started to crush his windpipe-

"Lady Shiva."

I growled, dropping the man to the ground. "Didn't I tell you to not interrupt me?" I snarled, turning around to glare at the ninja in the doorway.

"I came with a mission from Mistress Drake. I was told from a ninja named Katana that it was of the utmost importance." She said, bowing in apology.

I muttered under my breath, walking towards the ninja in quick, long strides. "What was the mission, then?" I asked, stopping in front of her.

"Mistress Drake said that you were to leave your post here immediately, so that you may lead a retrieval mission." She said.

I scowled, crossing my arms over my chest. "Why does she need me for a simple retrieval mission? Tell her I'm busy, and that she should make someone else do it." I said, turning to finish the man, who was know sobbing on the floor.

"Mistress Drake said that you were to retrieve Mistress Talia from the dungeon of The Palace, where Master Ra's was keeping her contained."

I froze, looking at the ninja over my shoulder. Not many knew, but for the high ups like me, there had been a grudge brewing between Talia and her Father. It had been slow, the anger and resentment becoming deeper and deeper in a way that no one would really notice unless they looked back at the time before Damian was born. What triggered the sudden action?

"Why didn't you say so sooner?!" I snapped, turning back around to walk out of the room quickly. "I'm going to pack for the trip, contact Drake to tell her I'm on my way." I said, pausing at the doorway, "Oh, and get rid of the piece of shit on the floor for me will you? It's a bitch to get blood out of carpet, and I'd prefer not to deal with it."

Tim POV

My breath hitched as Alfred pulled up in front of my apartment complex. Nothing had changed about the building since I had been here yesterday; the same people still hung outside the complex, the building was still painted an ugly puke green, and the flowers in front of the entrance were still fake and plastic as before.

But, as I stared at the building through the car window, everything seemed different. The building seemed so lifeless and dull, completely devoid of life, even with all the people in front of the apartment. The people who I usually talked to as I walked into the building, seemed so fake and double faced now, making me wince on the inside every time they asked if I was okay.

It felt as if Selina took the life of this place when she left.

My hand shook as I wrapped it around the door knob of my apartment, the tension in my chest tightening so much that I felt like I was suffocating. The first time coming in here, I only saw the living room, and only a quick glance at that. But now, even though I was only standing in front of the door, I knew it was going to be much worse than it had been last time. And honestly, I wasn't sure if I could take it, walking into the broken household that saved me from a life that could have been so much worse if Selina hadn't found me that night.

I tightened my hand around the knob, willing for the shaking to stop. Alfred was waiting out in the silver chevy outside, and since I didn't tell him that I was going to clean up the place a little, he wouldn't wait too long. And besides…. "I have to do this for Helena." I muttered, pushing the door with a soft creak.

I stepped over the pieces of wood and glass, tears glassing my eyes as I walked farther into the apartment, and into the direction of my room. My knees shook as I walked through my open doorway, my shoes dragging on the carpet, until I stopped in the middle of the room.

My room, which had been my safe place until now, was completely destroyed. The laptop that used to heat up in my lap when I used it too long was broken, the screen cracked, and little pieces of metal and wires laying around my room. My ceiling fan, which used to make noises, was detached from the ceiling now. It was laying on the floor now, the pieces of wood from it's wooden blades mixing in with the wooden scraps that used to be my dresser.

I backed out of my room, tears dotting my eyes. I turned around, walking back down the hallway, doing my best to block out the crushed memories that I passed, till I stopped at another doorway.

This door, instead of being simply opened like mine had been, was broken off it's hinges, the purple door laying on the floor with boot prints marking it. My knees shook as I stepped around the door, before I swallowed thickly.

If I thought my room was bad, Selina's room was worse. The ninja had literally destroyed everything. Every piece of furniture, jewelry, and memories were shredded; torn up and obliterated so much that I could probably spend days in this room alone, and I'd wouldn't be anywhere close to being able to put the broken pieces back together. The mattress no longer had any springs or foam in it, all of it's contents spread out across the room, with the rest cut into bits of pieces. Picture frames were smashed, cut, broken, and stained with black burn marks; memories gone and to never be found again, but... I froze.

There, stabbed into Selina's wall, was a shiny.

I blinked, staring at the piece of glittering metal stuck in between the charred ashes; my body moving on autopilot as I crossed the destroyed room quickly to get to the shiny. The metal of the shuriken wasn't the shiniest I've seen before, Batman's Batmobile glittered in the light far brighter than this, but as I looked closer at it, I saw a pattern.

It looked like a mark, intricate in design, yet some how simple in the way it showed off it's pattern of a demon. I pulled the ninja star out of the wall, it's metal cool against my skin as I brought it to my face to look at it closer.

Above the etched in pattern of a demon, there was small writing above it; small symbols that looked Arabic, but too tiny for me to be sure. "Did the assassins leave this here?" I muttered, walking out of Selina's room. "Seems sloppy of them to do that."

"Seems sloppy to do what, Master Timothy?"

I jumped, looking away from the shuriken so that I could look at Alfred's raised eyebrow. I bit my lip, not completely sure if I could trust the servant who worked for a man who chased me around for years, before raising the shuriken up in front of us. "This was in Selina's room, stuck in a wall for some reason." I said.

Alfred took it gently from my hands, a frown working it's way onto his face as he looked at it. "You're right, that is rather sloppy of them. Did you see anything else? A blood trail perhaps?"

I shook my head, thinking back to what I saw in the room. As trashed as the room was, the ninja had destroyed it all evenly. Everything was broken in the same way, not one piece different from the rest, so no one could have destroyed any furniture in a fight. Not to mention the metal itself was completely clean, not one spot of a stain on it except for the small amount of ash on it.

"No, this was it. There was no resistance, blood, or even anything unevenly broken." I said, a frown pulling on my lips.

"Because, my mistress is your mother."

I hadn't thought about what that assassin had said for awhile, the stress of leaving Helena and then coming back clouding my mind along with the fact that Selina was still missing. But as I stared at the shuriken, I couldn't help but think about it now.

A ninja star thrown into a wall with no sign of a fight, and for no obvious reason seemed too farfetched, especially for a professional group that Selina was afraid of. So was this put there by that ninja, or one of her co-workers?

And why? Even if there wasn't any misunderstanding or confusion, which I'm sure there was, and I was really this woman's child, why would she do anything for me? After all, the lady who ran the orphanage said I had been abandoned by a fancy looking car in the alley way. It made no sense for a woman who abandoned me to want to help me after abandoning me in the worse part of Gotham.

"I'll have to contact Master Bruce about this, see if he knows anything about this." Alfred said, breaking me from my train of thought. "With any luck, he'll be able to figure out if this belongs to a specific group."

"Okay." I said, watching Alfred leave as thoughts and ideas of who this 'mistress' was floated around my head like a plague.

Alfred POV

I sighed as I stepped out of the apartment, a breath of relief leaving my body as I got away from the destruction.

The room itself wasn't the main reason that felt so troubled in there. No, I had seen much worse just looking at crime scene pictures that Master Bruce examined on a daily basis. And even before Master Bruce became Batman, I had seen worse by working in the British Royal Family.

However, the way Master Timothy looked as I stared at the rubble with such dispar…. it was the same exact look Master Bruce had on his face the night his parents died. And that, was something I do not think I can go through again.

"-red. Alfred!" Master Bruce said loudly in my ear, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Yes, Master Bruce?"

"Are you alright, Alfred? You called but you never answered. Is everything okay at the apartment?" Master Bruce asked worriedly.

"I wouldn't say everything is perfect here, but we are both physically fine, yes." I said, "Though the same can not be said about the apartment."

"How's Tim taking it?" Master Bruce asked, concern slipping into his voice.

"He is trying to hold it in, for Mistress Helena's sake most likely. Though, I don't think he's taking it well." I said.

"I figured it would be bad, considering how fidgety he was when Helena said she wanted to go. I'm guessing you're calling to say your leaving the place?"

"That, is where you are wrong, Master Bruce." I said, holding the silver shuriken in my hand. "Master Timothy discovered a shuriken in the apartment."

"That seems sloppy for a ninja group that was tough enough to scare Selina. Did Tim say if there was any sign of resistance? I wouldn't be surprised if it was Selina who threw it in the middle of a fight." He asked.

"He said there wasn't any, though I highly doubt that Selina would have this on hand." I said.

"And why's that? Selina is smart, she knows how to use more than one type of weapon."

"I know that Master Bruce, it's just that I don't think she would have a shuriken with Talia Al Ghul's symbol engraved in it." I said.

Master Bruce paused at that. "Are you sure it's Talia's?"

"Yes," I said, rubbing my finger over the Arabic writing above the symbol. "I am certain it is Talia's. There's an inscription above it that says 'Daughter of the Demon' in arabic, so unless Ra's Al Ghul is a transvestite with a father we don't know about running the Assassin's League, than yes I am certain it is Talia's."

"The kids have corrupted you with their sarcasm." Master Bruce sighed.

"I adapt to survive, sir."

"You haven't told Tim, have you?" Master Bruce asked suddenly.

I sighed, looking at the apartment door. "No, I haven't. Master Timothy is an older brother; he will hold in as much as he thinks he needs to in order for Mistress Helena to remain as unscared as possible. Nothing I say or do will change that right now, the most I can do is simply let everything have plenty of time to sink in."

"Fair enough. Has Tim said anything about seeing anything else?" Bruce asked.

"No. With all the rubble and debris, the only reason Master Timothy probably found it was because it was shiny. We would have to clean this apartment before we could ever hope of finding anything else." I said.

"Then, I hate to ask this of you, but-"

"Consider it done, Master Bruce. Timothy and I will have this apartment cleaned before dinner." I said, smiling gently, before turning around to walk into the apartment.

Timothy POV

I looked out the car window, staring at the inky darkness of Gotham's night. We had spent the whole day cleaning the apartment, not that I was complaining since it was now clean enough for Helena to see without crying. However, we didn't see another piece of evidence in the apartment. No sign of struggle, or blood, and not even another shiny. Though, there was one other thing we brought back.

"Are you sure she said 'snowball'? Are you sure she didn't say another name? Like, Snow, or Puffball?" I asked, glaring at the pure white cat in the back seat, who was sitting there like she was royalty.

"I am not going deaf just yet, Master Timothy. I am sure of what I heard." Alfred chuckled.

I grumbled under my breath, glaring at the cat. "I still think we should have dumped it into the Gotham river as we passed it."

"That would be animal cruelty, Master Timothy, and I'm sure Mistress Selina would be very disappointed in you if you did that to one of her cats." Alfred said, smiling gently as he watched me have a glare match with a cat.

"I don't know, Alfred, I think she'd get over it." I said, "After all, once this spawn of satan's gone, it's evil influence will be gone too."

"Master Timothy… you are aware that it is just a cat, correct?" He asked, an eyebrow raised.

I shook my head, glaring at the cat even harder as it sits itself up like royalty, a smirk in her eyes. "Oh no, Alfred, trust me, that cat is the starter of the apocalypse. You don't see it yet, but trust me, she's evil."

"I see." Alfred said slowly, his mouth starting to twitch upwards even more. "I'll make preparations for her attack in the future then."

"Good idea, Alfred." I said, looking away from the cat slowly as the car parked.

I stepped out of the car, watching Puffball jump out of the car, her tail held high in the air. "That cat's going to end up killing me one day." I muttered, walking inside the Manor.

"Timmy!" Helena squealed, just before she attacked my legs, hugging them tightly. "I thought you said you weren't going to be gone all day."

I chuckled, ruffling her hair. "Yeah, I know. But there was… more stuff to do than we thought." I said with a grimace.

Helena pouted, but nodded. "Okay. Did you get Puffball?" She asked, her grin coming back.

"Yes, sadly. Alfred made me bring her." I grumbled. "She probably ran off to the back yard to do her business or something. Or to strike terror into the birds nest near by."

"I don't think cats are that much trouble, Tim." Dick said with a smile as he walked up to us, ruffling my hair even as I glared at him. "I've been dealing with you long enough to know that."

"I'm not saying cats in general are trouble, that's stupid." I said. "It's just that one cat that's going to slowly kill us all off one by one."

Helena giggled, her eyes shining with delight. "No she's not, silly. She's just trying to show her love."

"If that's the case, then I don't want her love." I said, poking Helena in the forehead, causing her to giggle even more. The sound was nice to hear, especially after what happened last night.

"Well, as hilarious as it is to listen to you talk about a killer cat," Dick started, "I need to borrow your big brother, okay Helena?"

"But Timmy just got back." Helena frowned, tightening her hold on my legs.

"It'll be okay." I said, starting to pry Helena's hands off my legs, "I promise I'll spend all the time you want with you after you get out of school tomorrow, deal?"

Helena frowned, but nodded, letting go of my legs. "Okay, but you have to keep your promise. Even if Puffball is there!"

I nodded, "I promise, even if Puffball is there." I said.

Helena nodded, her face concentrated in a serious way before Alfred started to lead her away. "You're afraid of a cat," Dick said, after Helena had turned down a hallway, the corner of his lips turning upwards. "named Puffball."

I frowned, walking towards a Batcave entrance with Dick. "Puffball is not just a cat, she is the anti-christ, and she is going to kill us all in the bloodiest, deadliest, and fluffiest way possible."

"Sure Timmy, sure." Dick said, chuckling.

I scowled at him, before I turned more serious. "So what is Bruce thinking about doing next?" I asked.

Dick stopped laughing, a sigh coming out instead. "We're going to try to find the place where Selina was attacked." Dick said, "There's a limited number of places where she could have gone in that day, and we're going to try to pick up a trail from there."

I nodded as Dick stopped in front of a grandfather clock, spinning the hour hand until the clock clicked open into a doorway. "Huh, original. I was expecting something cliche, like pulling a book on a shelf."

"Well, this is Batman's base we're talking about." Dick said as we walked down the staircase. "Besides, he has that, too."

"Of course he does." I muttered under my breath. Our footsteps were silent as we walked down the stairs, a giant map of Gotham on the screen of the Batcomputer, red dots scattered on the screen.

"I'm guessing those dots are where we'll be going?" I asked.

"Tt. Of course it is, Sherlock." Damian snapped, glaring at through the corner of his eyes.

I glared at him, "Oh, looks like the demon spawn finally learned what comedy is." I snapped.

"Tt. Why don't you-"

"Enough!"

I froze, turning my head to stare at Batman. He was sitting in his chair, glaring at both of us.

"Tim, do you know for sure if Selina went to these locations?" Batman asked, pointing to the screen.

I blinked, looking up at the red dot. One was at the Cat's Cradle, Gotham Bank, and the daycare Helena went to. "Yeah, she went to all of those. She probably dropped off Helena first, then went to the bank before she went to work like she always does."

"Probably?" Jason asked, an eyebrow raised.

"I left before they went, for my job." I said, "Either way, it doesn't matter. Selina likes to keep her money safe, so she always goes there before she goes to work, and I know Selina took her to to the Daycare. You can ask Helena where she went when she wakes up, if you want to know that badly."

Batman raised his eyebrows curiously, before nodding. "And anywhere else she usually goes?" he asked.

"For a work day? That's about it. She doesn't go anywhere else." I said.

"Good." Batman nodded. "That's three locations, and six of us including you. That leaves us with going as pairs of two."

"How are we going to pair up, then?" Dick asked, looking over at Damian and me worriedly.

"Me and Damian will go to the Bank to see if that's where she was attacked. Jason and Dick will go to the Daycare and the area around it to see if she was ambushed while she was getting Helena, and Tim and Cassandra will check out the Cat's Cradle since Tim knows it best." Batman said. "Any questions?"

"Yes." Damian said. "Timothy doesn't have a costume. He can't leave the cave without one."

"Actually," I said, smirking at the Demon as he scowled. "me and Alfred picked up my spare suit while we were at my place, since the assassins destroyed the original. So it looks like I'll be going after all."

"Tt.' Damian huffed, walking towards the changing room with his hands curled into fists.

I smirked at his back, some of the pain from being in my destroyed apartment easing slightly as I watched Damian's anger.

Deathstroke POV

I smirked at the screen, showing my bank account. "Alright White Ghost, I got the money." I said. "I'll start the mission."

"Good. I'll inform Lord Ra's." White Ghost said, before hanging up.

I closed my phone, smiling. "Now to prep the robots."

Hey, I hope guys liked this chapter, and I really hope it was worth the wait.

Also, because I keep on forgetting this, I'm going to mention it now; the inspiration for the layout of the Cat's Cradle came from a Canadian Cat Adoption center. I was only able to find pictures of the layout and the building, which looks a lot like how I described the Cat's Cradle in this story, but I wanted to give credit to them anyways.