I'm very sorry for how long this is taking. I've actually rewritten the whole plot several times. I've just decided to remove a whole section to save on time.

I've been trying to get a "voice for these characters, but it's hard when the bat universe is in constant flux. As such, I'm going to try and not worry about this I cannot control.

I had the previous three chapters beta tested by Esther-Channah. She really helped me for those chapters; however, I didn't ask her to do this one because of the sheer length of the chapter.

I will try to work fast so I'll be done before the new millennium.

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Damn it. There's no way no one heard that, he thought to himself.

Nightwing stood over one of the many assailants he'd lay out throughout the mission. He had disarmed him, but not before he got one quick shot off.

"I messed up again." He thought to himself. "Bruce should be here."

He quickly picked up one of his Escrima stick that lay next to one of the fallen gunmen.

"Nightwing?"

Dick heard it through his ear piece. Robin's voice was hushed and fogged with static. Dick lifted his hand to his ear and pushed the transmit button. "I'm fine, Robin. Fall back to a safe distance. We need to reassess the--."

"Nightwing, can you hear me?"

He paused momentarily. "Robin?"

"Nightwing I heard a gunshot. What's your status?"

"Robin, can you hear me?"

Nightwing pulled out his earpiece. Almost immediately he could see the microphone on his com unit stripped. It'd take a few minutes to repair. That was time he didn't have. Dick placed it back into his ear.

He looked around for inspiration. There were at least a few dozen more men scattered throughout the harbor. All were going to be trigger happy and looking for them. Tim was scared that Nightwing was shot… Dick knew that. He saw that one of the gunmen he'd knocked out had a side arm and a radio. Nightwing quickly pulled the holster and the radio and leapt into the shadows.

Dick could hear Tim's voice was starting to become more intense trying to reach him. He pulled the gun and its holster. He wrapped the holster around his thigh and removed the gun. He then checked the radio. It was still on and receiving a signal. There was a dial on the top that went from 1 to 9 showing separate channels. The channel was on three… he flipped through them once over. There were no incoming signals so he set it back to three and slipped the radio into the holster. Nightwing checked the sidearm. He pulled out the clip and checked the number of bullets: 12 rounds. He put the clip back in the side arm.

Through his ear piece, Robin had stopped trying to reach him. Nightwing climbed to the top of a pile of crates. From his vantage point, he could make out five men coming cautiously towards the area he was in. There were another four heading towards the building he believed Robin to be in. Seven men were heading towards the truck beds to set them up for driving out. Nightwing aimed the gun to the air and fired.

The five men in the area jumped slightly and froze in their spots looking around. The seven heading into the building froze momentarily too and looked in the direction of the gunfire. Through his earpiece, Nightwing could hear Robin.

"Nightwing, I hear gunfire, are you okay?"

Nightwing pointed the gun up again and fired again.

Three of the five men in the area turned around and ran away while one of the other two turned around screaming, "You cowards" at the runners.

Robin paused through the wireless. "Dick?"

Immediately, Nightwing fired in the air again.

It was immediately followed by the two gunmen turning around and firing into the darkness around where Nightwing was. Nightwing then jumped his way through the shadows to position himself behind the two gunmen.

"Nightwing, is that you?" Nightwing fired again in the air. The two gunmen turned their attention towards the gunfire, only to each meet a high velocity Escrima stick directly aimed at their temples. Nightwing leaped down to the ground level to check on the gunmen and collect his sticks.

"Your microphone's busted and it's only receiving the transmissions."

Nightwing threw the sidearm on the ground and then leapt back into the shadows.

"That's not too bad. At least I can overview what I see… first things first. Stay away from any of Penguin's shipments. Penguin's hired Dr Polaris to position the beds for shipment. They're pretty prepared here… I'm looking at thirteen men surrounding the cabs. They may be stretching themselves too thin…they're feeding five guys at a time towards your position to keep you distracted. I'm--"

The line went silent which was followed by machinegun fire. Nightwing took to the sky and got as much height as he could. He analyzed the situation at hand. Polaris. The sheer number of hired thugs. The size of the shipment. None of this was expected. Bruce would have known what to do, he thought. First of all, he probably wouldn't have wasted time making Tim know that he was ok. He also probably wouldn't have obsessed about how he was making all these mistakes and concentrate on stopping the shipments. Robin's in the building fighting off 4 armed men. He figured that gave him about two and a half minutes. Nightwing used that time to climb to highest point he could to see Polaris positioning the crates on beds. As he landed on a crate, it began to shimmy. It lifted slightly in the air along with the one covering him for shelter. He leapt and rolled into an area between two shipments. He peered around the corner to see Polaris; his arms rose motioning the crates. Four crates in a line were being pulled and manipulated to fit onto platforms. He was effortlessly juggling 20 ton shipments. Nightwing knew that Dr. Emerson's persona gravitated towards evil when he emitted so much power. His persona, however, was hard to deal with in teams as he was easily manipulated and corrupted.

As he overviewed the layout of the operation, Robin came back on the wireless earpiece.

"Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh, right. Penguin's positioned by the bed loading areas and there's a grouping of guys over by the entrance. There are the two that are outside the fence and 6 more in canopy positions around the entrance. There are three beds already set up for transport. We're going to need to stop them at the entrance. I'm headed there now. I'll take out the men in the canopy. You concentrate on stopping those trucks."

Nightwing looked up. And saw a cargo crane. He thought of blocking the entrance with another crate, but hooking up the crate would take too long. To the right, he saw a heavy fork lift with a weight cart behind it. He ran towards it.

Nightwing could see there was a brief flash in the security area followed by smoke seeping out the windows. Gunfire was heard and was immediately silenced. Nightwing continued at his task on hand. He got in the fork lift and hotwired it. Once the engine turned over, he put it into the highest gear he could and floored it towards the entrance. In the corner of his eye, Nightwing could see Robin leap from one canopy to another. Through his earpiece, Robin informed him that one of the trucks already got out. At that moment, Nightwing could see the entrance and see the trucks moving at about twenty miles an hour. A hail of gunfire came on the forklift. Nightwing aimed the forklift and dove from the cart he rolled away from the light and looked back to see the forklift crash between the chassis and the cab connection of the second truck. The impact knocked the front section off the bed and it jackknifed getting caught in the gate entrance. The weights behind the forklift scattered leaded obstructions across the entrance. The gateway was lodged.

Instantly, Nightwing took off running. Guns were fired on him. He zigzagged making his direction unpredictable. From what he could hear there were three gunmen. However, only two of them were aimed towards the ground. He slid towards the wreckage below the 18 wheeler's axle and rose up from the other side. As much effort as he could muster he ran up the cab to the other side of the gate to confront two armed men outside. The two gunmen had pulled their guns from their hidden locations. They aimed towards their assailant. He dove towards the legs first towards the closest gunman hitting his shoulder knocking him to the ground. The other gunman was in a panic and was firing wildly at the two. Nightwing drew his fire away from the one he'd knocked to the floor. He dive rolled towards the wild gunman and extended the end to have enough momentum to fly forwards with a shoulder check. The guard fell back off balanced and Nightwing hit a roundhouse that knocked the gunman out. Behind him, the first gunman was getting back to his feet. Nightwing threw three windings aimed towards his shoulder and arm. They hit on target… one hit the hand holding the gun directly with an impact that it stuck from his hand which caused pain to shoot through his arm. Nightwing used the short moment of pause to throw his full weight into a lunge kick that would have definitely caused dental damage. The gunman fell to the floor thoroughly knocked out. Nightwing could hear the machine gunfire had ended behind him. A dark red shadow fell to his side. Nightwing looked beside him to see a relieved Robin. "It's good to see you heard my transmission. For a while there, I thought I was narrating what I was doing like an idiot."

"What transmission?"

"Um… nothing."

"Relax. I'm just kidding. Do you have an extra transmitter?"

"Not on me. We need to set up for Polaris. Penguin will move him to this area to clear the way for the trucks in no time."

While they were talking, Robin pulled the two knocked out gunmen off to the side and Nightwing reached into the cab of the wrecked truck to pull out the driver.

"Did you hear anything else?"

"Yeah. From my position I could hear why Penguin was here. Apparently, someone's been intercepting his shipments as they were being loaded in his contact locations. The Chilled Queen was the only one that he was able to get through the blockade. Not all of the shipments are arms; some of them are narcotics, irradiated supplies. There may even be kryptonite in one of the shipments. He's not planning on getting them all out of here… but he needs enough to keep his buyers happy."

"How long has he had this planned?"

"The ship's logs were updated three weeks ago. That should have been more than enough time for Batman to update the numbers. I called the JSA… They'll be here in time for the clean up, but we need to stop the trucks now."

"I'll deal with Polaris. You concentrate on disabling the trucks in case Polaris clears the way."

"What are you going to do?"

"You're asking me as if I ever know. Now hurry up, he'll be here any minute."

Robin quickly jumped up to the other side of the gate and swung towards other shipment of trucks.

For a moment, Nightwing thought to himself how fortunate to have Tim around. He was adapting to the situation, reading the scenario like a chess player. While with the Titans, Nightwing was the leader and everyone looked to him for leadership [reluctantly at first]. In this family, it's less leadership and more fluidity. Every piece of the plan fell into place in an operation, even when they fell apart while doing so.

He looked at his forearms covered with steel gauntlets. He removed a small wad of concentrate syntax and threw it into the rubble of the forklift. He pulled the detonator and a few wingdings from several of the compartments… then he unlatched and removed the gauntlets and any other heavy metallic casing. He untied the holster around his thigh and the communication device from his ear. He then removed the mask from his face and pulled a cloth mask from his belt and wrapped it around his eyes. Dick noticed there was a steel pull rod for hoisting on the forklift. He climbed the wreckage and pulled for it. As he felt the weight of the steel in his hand, the weights in the forklift began to shake. Without thinking he threw his wingdings in the air. They paused in mid air and flew back at him. He ducked and dodged the returning metal shards.

Nightwing could then hear Polaris's voice bellow from behind his mask. "Don't piss me off kid; I'm not above swatting at gnats."

Nightwing looked directly at him. He levitated twelve feet off the ground… outside of jumping distance. His arms were extended away from him and manipulating all the metal encompassing the doorway. As he increased his power output the surrounding metal was slowly gravitating towards him.

"Wow, you insulted me twice in one sentence. What is that, a double word score?"

"I'd call it 'your only warning to stay out of the way'."

"Well, so much for making a new friend." As he completed the sentence, he pressed the button on the detonator causing the forklift to explode. Half the forklift lodged itself into the gate itself while the other half slammed into the bed of the truck. Nightwing dove to the ground and rolled away from the blast. The shock blew Polaris back towards the ground, but never hitting it. He caught himself five feet in the air. He righted himself and planted both his feet and turned towards a dusted Nightwing.

"Alright. You win. I'm going for conspiracy for drug-smuggling and murder tonight."

The scattered weights around the door levitated off the ground and flew towards Nightwing. With miraculous agility, Nightwing dodged the propelling metal weights. Polaris reached a hand behind him and pointed at a parked car. He threw his arm forward with little effort hurled the car towards Nightwing. Nightwing calculated its trajectory immediately and rolled away just avoiding its thunderous weight. The metal rod remained in his hand. Nightwing extended the roll to a lunging swing with the rod. Polaris grabbed the metal rod immediately with his magnetism to which Nightwing let go and followed through with a lunging downward thrust with his fist. The Kevlar took a large brunt of the hit, but the metal exterior of Polaris's helmet could still be felt. Fortunately, Nightwing knew that Polaris felt it more in his head rattling against the side of the helmet. Nightwing hit him again with a flipping kick knocking Polaris to the ground.

"You bastard!" he screamed.

"Your insults are getting more generic Emerson. I'd be surprised if you got one point for that."

Polaris then reached out with both hands away from him and grabbed two crates. He clapped his hands together and the two crates crashed together exactly where he thought Nightwing was. Polaris then got to his feet. As the dust settled, Polaris could hear Nightwing call out. "You know, you were supposed to clear this area, not pile these crates in the way of the trucks, right?"

"I'll clean the mess once I start seeing your blood coat the ground."

"Great plan. Well, good luck killing me, then."

Polaris grabbed one of the two crates and threw it off to the side. Polaris Then grabbed the other one, but just as he was about to move it to the side, Nightwing jumped down from above it with the pull bar in hand. Nightwing swung again towards the head with the steel bar. Polaris levitated himself away from the fight. Nightwing was only able to clip Polaris's leg denting the metal joint. Polaris waved his arm stripping the bar from his arms. Nightwing continued the advancement to keep Dr. Emerson off balanced. Without thinking, Polaris allowed himself to get in a close quarter direct confrontation. He threw his right arm forward. Nightwing easily avoided the punch and deflected it so Polaris's back was facing him Nightwing shoved him towards the ground again. In sheer frustration, Polaris removed his awkward helmet and turned around to get a better view of his surroundings. Nightwing had grabbed another metal pole and was swinging it towards him again.

"You keep trying the same thing over and over, Nightwing. When are you going to learn it's not working?"

Again, Polaris flicked his fingers away and the metal bar flew away. Nightwing then lunged with his knee towards his exposed head.

"That one wasn't even an insult… Nightwing's actually my name."

Polaris tried to again get away from the combat. Nightwing grabbed the high collar of Polaris's cape pulling him closer to his head. There was a large crack sound coming from Polaris's jaw as the knee connected. Polaris staggered to his hands and knees.

Nightwing then said behind him, "Let me ask you: when you see me coming at you with a metal bar, do you think the danger coming at you is the metal bar or the guy holding it?"

As Nightwing finished the sentenced he lowered an elbow across Polaris's temple. Dr. Emerson's head twisted with a force he hadn't expected and fell unconscious.

Nightwing grabbed the body of Dr. Emerson and hauled it towards the gate entrance. Once he got there, he collected his audio transmitter and a small concoction to keep Dr. Emerson unconscious for a little longer. The minute he put the transmitter into his ear, Nightwing could hear Robin talking through.

"Nightwing, where are you? The Penguin is really freaking out right now. He's screaming into some kind of radio he has with him."

Reaching behind him, Nightwing saw the holster with a working radio in it. Nightwing pulled out the radio and changed the channels on the radio.

On channel 8, the radio came alive. "Emerson. Report." It was the Penguin's squawky voice.

Nightwing responded. "Neal Emerson's not available right now. Did you want to leave a message?"

"Who is this?"

"Jeez, Oswald. You'd think that after all these years you'd at least remember my voice."

The line went silent.

"Oswald? Are you there?"

"You intrusive reckless uncivilized charlatan. I'll cause you such imaginative pain for your interference you self deluded faux-Batman interloper."

"Wow… You're much better at that then Polaris was. Although I'm sure if he was conscious longer, he might have come up with something colorful enough to compete."

In his ear, he could hear Tim respond, "Dick, I don't know if you can hear me, but the Penguin's going pretty crazy right now."

A smile showed across Nightwing's face.

"Here's the thing Ozzy. The entrance is completely blocked. The facility is fenced off… and I'm pretty sure the police will be here within ten minutes. Now we can spend this time playing cat and mouse where we try to catch you causing grievous bodily harm or you can put your guns down and surrender. Which is it going to be?"

Nightwing used this time to move towards Penguin and the others. He could almost hear the squawks of the Penguin in the distance. To his far right, he could see two men with guns running towards a side exit. Robin fell from the sky immediately grabbing one in a head lock while kicking the other one into a nearby shadow as if they were eaten by the darkness.

"I guess your men have decided on the third option. Every man for themselves. After all, it's easier for one to escape than seven together."

Then from approximately 20 yards away, Nightwing could hear a screaming squawk, "Come back here you apostate."

Nightwing shifted himself through the shadows to see Penguin standing in front of three men. They stood poised with machine guns pointed in virtually all directions. Nightwing smiled and thought to himself, One well placed knockout gas bomb, and the whole exercise is over.

The Penguin was still screaming into the radio he held in his hand. It was more complex than the one the thug he'd knocked out had. He wasn't talking on channel eight. Nightwing pulled out the radio and lowered the volume to an almost inaudible level before switching channels. On channel four he heard the Penguin's voice.

"Harrison, have you got a shot?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Penguin, sir. I've been trying to shoot that Nightwing, guy, but my gun's completely jammed. I can't get it to work."

"Carson, how about you?"

"I saw one of them jump into a shadow towards one of the office entrances."

To Nightwing heart-wrenching realization, there was another sniper.

"The second he comes out, he's mine."

An ice chill went up Nightwing's spine. His transmitter was broken, he could only hear Robin. He could scream to Robin, but the three gunmen would zero in on him and fire drawing Robin out of the shadow. As fast as he could, Nightwing threw five knockout pellets as hard as he could towards the Penguin and his three henchmen. One of them got several shots off, but Nightwing threw his Escrima sticks with such strength and accuracy, he partially feared he might have damaged the spine of one of the gunmen. Nightwing threw fists and legs in the circle surrounding the Penguin until he was the only on left standing in that circle. When he was done fighting, he looked around. Immediately, he knew the knockout gas had not completely dissipated from the area, but he had to clear this area as quickly as possible to verbally warn Robin. Then with all the strength in his lungs, he screamed as loud as he could, "Robin, stay in the shadow."

Unfortunately, Nightwing wasn't sure how far his voice carried.

Nightwing took two steps forward and felt his knee buckle. He caught his balance by placing his hand on his knee and keeping himself up and screamed again. "There's another sniper, stay where you are."

He inhaled trying to run back into the shadows. He couldn't smell the gas, but knew that he'd only have thirty seconds before he'd have to concentrate on staying awake. In the radio, he could hear the sniper on the other end. "I think he's coming out now."

Nightwing used all that was left of his voice in one final scream, "No, Robin! Stay down! Sniper!"

As if he were living a nightmare in slow motion he saw Robin leap from the shadows from twenty feet off the ground. Using a propelling grappling Robin launched himself in the air towards Nightwing's position. As he flew in the air, Nightwing was waiting for the inevitable.

As he was coming toward the ground Nightwing could see a slight jolt across Robin's shoulder. A portion of the cape shrugged and Robin rotated in flight unnaturally. Robin went limp as he fell the final ten feet towards the ground

He continued to roll towards the ground chest first. His shoulder hit the ground first followed by the rest of his limp body.

Nightwing's scream was lost in his throat.

"I got him, but I can't see where he landed."

He hobbled his way towards Robin.

"Harrison, can you see him?"

"Yeah, I can see him. But my gun's broken. He's thirty feet away from the operating crane."

"Got him. Bye-Bye Birdie."

Nightwing kept thinking to himself, I failed, I wasn't fast enough... I wasn't strong enough. I'm so sorry Tim.

"AAAAHHHHHHHH"

As Nightwing collapsed to his knees, he saw a red blur fly over Robin making him disappear.

"Carson, what was that?"

"There's green fire everywhere."

Nightwing let his upper body be supported by his hands. He breathed heavily. His muscles burned with strain and his vision was lessening to shapes and colors. Nightwing was desperately trying to stay conscious. To crawl to Tim... Wherever he was. Then a pair of blue boots softly touched the ground next to him.

"Hey, hero. The cavalry's here."

Nightwing tilted his head upwards to look at the costume standing next to him. All he could make out was yellow hair a gold staff and a blue outfit. He couldn't think of who it might be. All he could think of was Tim. Where was he?

"Oh, please don't collapse on me before getting your name. That's going to be totally embarrassing for me."

Nightwing felt his shoulders fall to the ground. Right before loosing consciousness, the last thing he heard was, "Um, guys? Could I get a little help here… And a camera?"