Hello Guys! The Phantom Penance will NEVER give up!

Sorry for the long wait. I've had epiphany after epiphany and I had to go back to where I started. I promise, after this chapter, King of gods and Time to Change the World will be updated as well, for I AM A MAN OF MY WORD!

I won't put it off. I know how long you've waited, so let's begin!

CHAPTER TEN: Black, Blue, and Fool's Gold

Undisclosed Location….

The dying scream and the flash of blood. Same old deal.

He's been working with these cultists for years, this is of no surprise to him. Any emotions of the ritual had vanished on day 25, except one: Impatience. He's been doing this job far longer than any job he's ever taken, and he's still nowhere near the end goal that he's sought. Half of his mind wants to cut his losses and just steal it while the other half wants to kill the crazies and take his vengeance.

But he must be patient. His master boasted of the thief's boundless supply of patience when it comes to the kill, so if he wants to prove to all –to her- that he's the better warrior, he must beat the thief in every aspect, including patience.

His employer just finished his bath and with a snap, the cultists garb him in that white robe he's so fond of. Time to let the boss know where he stands.

"I know what it is you ask of, my warrior." The boss suddenly spoke, before he could even utter a word. That alone won't surprise him, or at least make him show it.

"Our bargain has reached its limit." He spoke, "You either give me what I want right now, or your blood will join that pool you're so fond of."

The Boss laughed, naturally. "You cannot comprehend the power I hold, especially after my bathing. I could destroy you in an instant."

Neither men back down and the cultists know better than to interfere. Their master's warrior has proven his strength many times before and his knowledge of how to kill a man the longest, most painful way possible. No, an end like that is not what they desire. And yet, their true master is powerful in the mystic ways and very in touch with…the evil one. He could give them a fate worse than death.

Better to wait and see where the dice falls.

"However….." the master began, "am I not a man of my word? I made a promise you would get what you receive after serving my cause, and I shall honor it."

The employed smirks, it's about time his hard earned work-

"One more."

"What?" He demanded sharply. The bloodied one smirked as he turned to face a window to the city above them.

"The ultimate ritual requires the blood of one more chosen one. When you have found her, all our acolytes- including your benefactor- must answer the call and attend. That is when you can get what you desire."

The hired killer rubbed his chin. His vengeance was closer than he thought it would be, IF he has the patience to go after one more girl. "Very well. Where can I find her?"

Blood grinned maliciously. "She will not be easy, this one. She is not like the others, she is well trained."

Now it was his turn to smirk. "She's not trained to deal with me…"

(LINE BREAK! TAKE THIS TIME TO EAT, GET OFF THE INTERNET, DO SOMETHING!)

(OKAY, LINE BREAK OVER. WORK TIME)

Gotham City…...

Artemis fell face first in the comforting arms of her pillow and bed. Between school, the Team, and an overwhelming amount of Wally's dumb antics, she's had very little time for herself, to unwind and relax. That's good for her, having little time to relax, because her schedule keeps her too busy to worry about unnecessary things, as well as the hypothetical. Nothing scares her more than the hypothetical.

Like, what if they find out? What if Red Arrow finds out and exposes her to them? What if she's no longer a hero and becomes like her father? What would they do to her, her mother?

Questions that are unrelenting enough to drive anyone mad, let alone a teenaged girl who already has to deal with the heavy life-choices ahead of her on top of the questions. Thankfully, she doesn't have to think very hard on the questions tonight. Even now, when she's resting, she's still keeping herself busy.

By trying to decipher exactly what Cheshire said to her when she was pinned.

"Look at you go! Being the good girl and keeping her family out of jail. Dad would be so proud of you, if you even still call him that these days."

Could be anything. Could be Cheshire throwing her a fast-curve, making her even more confused so she could get away. Could be her agreeing with Artemis for once, that Dad was a selfish piece of trash that ruined their chance at a normal life for whatever reason.

OR it could be what she's implying. That he's not….

'There's an easy way to find out,' her mind whispers to her, but she would never do it. She wouldn't hurt her own mother like that. No mother or father wants to hear their child question who their real parents is, even if their current father is a murdering supervillain. And a total jerk to his family.

No. Everybody's so interested in her recently, why don't she find out what all the fuss is about? Quietly.

But for now….SLEEP!

(LINE BREAK! GO BE WITH YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!)

(LINE BREAK OVER! YOU CAN COME BACK NOW!)

Arkham Asylum…

Back against the wall….overwhelming forces…..pure evil trying to escape…..what else can one say when help finally arrives?

"Absolutely freaking not."

His smile dropped. Her face got puzzled. Naruto's face, however, was dead set on what he just said. Absolutely not. NO NO NO NO NO. If there was ever one thing he and Batman were so adamantly dead set on, it was this.

Booster Gold was not to be trusted. Not because he's deceptive. The man couldn't tell a good lie to fool a baby. Plus he's a Green Lantern costume knockoff, can't even come up with his own scheme, but that's irrelevant now.

"Aw c'mon SF-"

"Don't call me that."

"This place is shut down along with comms to the Watchtower and GCPD, you need all the help you can get! Especially if it's from a certified hero!"

Nothing that came out of his mouth boosted confidence inside Shadow Fox. "I've read your m.o., you're vain and undisciplined. You'd just get in the way."

"I agree that he's not the best of help," Black Canary spoke, despite Booster Gold's displeasure, "but we're at the end of our ropes here. Any help is good help to me."

Naruto stared sharply at her. "I'm fine with you helping despite knowing the reason why you're here."

"Job application," she answered smoothly.

Made perfect sense. "Wrong place for a job Canary. Arkham's full of bloody maniacs, not villains with complicated pasts."

"That's not what I heard," the martial arts master shot back. "I heard someone here turned a new leaf, pun intended, and I wanted to make it a domino effect."

"Guys, we can play catch up later!" Booster Gold interjected. "Right now, we've got a bunch of maniacs that need to get back in their cells. Let's do this already!"

Shadow Fox stared at the D-List hero. "Gold's right, chat later. Gordon'll rally his men to keep the inmates on the island. Canary, find a way to get the comms back on, and don't get too close to the inmates, madness can make them very strong."

The Bird of Prey smirked, "I can handle strong."

"And you," Shadow Fox addressed Gold, "are leaving."

Once again, Booster Gold's joyful countenance fell. "Aw c'mon!"

"If I may interject." The voice came from above, a robot that looked oddly like a football with a black eye and a red iris. "My programming is advanced enough to assist Black Canary in restoring power to the facility." Skeets supplied.

"Wait Skeets, you could do that all this time?" Booster Gold asked, astounded.

"You never required me to hack anything sir," Skeets responded in a kind of apologetic tone, as if it was sorry it kept something from him.

"But what about that time when-"

"Anyway, that sounds like a great idea." Shadow Fox cut in. "Skeets, join Canary and get communications running again. Gold, I guess you can help Gordon keep the inmates on the island until Skeets and Canary are finished. Then you leave my city."

"Awesome! Time for some heroic work!" Gold exclaimed as he took to the sky.

'Don't make me regret this.' Naruto silently thought. Now that he thought about it really, Booster Gold is a time traveler with knowledge of the past…who just so happens to be in Gotham when a breakout is being taken place- oh that lying….

"What are you going to do?" Canary questioned, breaking the Shadow Fox out of his internal rant.

The blonde smirked as he faced the Arkham building. "Clearly, Arkham Asylum has a new warden." He popped his knuckles as his smirk turned into a full blown grin. "I'm gonna give him a review on his recent performance."

(LINE BREAK! LIVE LIFE!)

(LINE BREAK DONE!)

Warden's Office….

"Oho! Sharpie! Why didn't you tell me you had all these little toys? Oh, we could have really made a connection," laughed one of the most insidious people in the history of earth, the Joker.

Oh, he was having the time of his life, a real blast! Of course, this was all a very short notice and his friends on the other side wanted him for something special, but what can you say? Joker is nothing if not quick on his feet.

Scarefreak's a real help, had some things fresh out of storage that could really turn this town upside down. Planned to present it to the NightLight group in hopes of joining in their little club meetings, but they had an alternative fun-juice from Joker's good old buddy Bane. Oh well, more for the Clown Prince of Crime. All that was need was some of that famous Scare-Gas (though he had to admit, it was still a cheap knock of the real Laughing-Gas), Bane venom, and some plants Ivy left behind.

Put it together and whadd'ya got? Certainly not Hippity-Boppity-Boo. A really big bang going down in Arkham. Some days, it really does pay to get beat up by an over-grown stooge in bat-tights.

"….Uuuhhh Boss?" Joker's smile quickly turned to a scowl.

"What!?" He snapped in his radio. Thugs, always interrupting his special moments. Harley at least respected-

"Umm, there's some guys here who aren't supposed to be here. We-uh- we think Miss Quinn's with them."

Harley!? "My Harley!?" This warranted an immediate inspection. IMMEDIATELY. With a click of a button, Joker was treated to his favorite show of the day: all the security cameras of Arkham Asylum. Most showed the same thing: unrelenting, irrefutable, maddening chaos in Arkham, but some had some more interesting people.

"Well, whadd'ya know? Harley's flown the coup!" Joker growled, "and she's leaning on some boring chump too close for my comfort!"

And that wasn't even the worst part! The heroes were already ruining his fun. Especially with the fox brat! He wasn't even supposed to be here, in Gotham! Gotham is a playground that belongs strictly to Batsy and him! They're playground to play their crazy little game for eternity, and like the Boy Blunder, he was ruining that!

"Time for me get some new fur," Joker muttered, then grinned as a dastardly evil plan came to his mind. "And I won't even have to go hunting." More insane laughs escaped his mouth, and the poor Warden in the corner had no choice but to hope and pray the laughs weren't intended for him.

(Black Canary)

"Arkham schematics show that Arkham's telecommunications room is this way. Please try to keep up, time is not on our side," Skeets called behind him.

'Easy for him to say.' Black Canary thought to herself as ran a Joker goon face-first into a wall. There was plenty of inmates and goons to try and keep her from reaching the comm room. Trying is the key word, but they at least get an A for effort. Five to a dozen at a time, she can handle. If there's more than that, she has to get a little….vocal with them. They usually catch the rift.

Before she applied to a job, Dinah did a little bit of study on Arkham history and texture. The website declared it to be a grand asylum with state-of-the-art technology and strong walls to keep the inmates inside and safe for treatment, but a closer look told Dinah the truth.

It was a wonder Arkham hadn't collapsed already. Down in the lower quarters, main pillars were created above dark chasms that never seemed to end with the path between the chasm completely void of railing. The walls were strong enough not to fall to natural circumstances, but the world had become increasingly crazy since Arkham's creation and Arkham itself contained the worst of its crazy.

It wasn't a wonder how so many was able to escape. In fact, some might be escaping to get out of this death trap waiting to spring loose, but that'll have to wait.

"Die, b-" goon didn't even get to finish before Canary launched herself into action. Disarmed the gunman, went for head to confuse, took out the knee, lifted and threw to the wall to knock out. Moves that took only a few seconds for the master to deploy.

"We're getting close, right?" Canary questioned.

Skeets…..sort of nodded. "It should be right above us now. We just have to take the elevator up."

Canary nodded. Seemed easy enough, but appearances were always deceiving when it comes to hero work. That's one of the top ten hero rules. Best to get it done fast to save the maximum amount of lives possible.

The elevator pinged open. The entrance to comms room was oddly unprotected, a big sign that the fight ahead was not going to be easy.

(Booster Gold)

The greatest of all, the mightiest of might, Booster Gold, scoured the sky in search of anything that would dare to escape the island and his inescapable focus.

'There!' He thought as he spotted a speed boat trying to speed away and quickly swooped downward to intercept.

Apparently, the men inside it spotted him and realized what sort of trouble they were in for he pulled out an automatic and fired madly into the sky. Booster gave him a sporting chance, bobbing and weaving back and forth to dodge the bullets before letting the bullets hit his shields, and showing the escapees just how hopeless their endeavor was.

"Sorry pals, but when Booster Gold's on the job, crime never pays!" He smirked before connecting his fist into both of their jaws.

"That was a good one, gotta remember it the next time!" He made sure to make himself remember to remind Skeets to remind himself to use that at the next interview he should come across.

Guess it didn't really matter where Booster dropped the thugs off, GCPD and Arkham staff would figure out who goes where when the whole thing blows over. He dropped them at a reasonably far distance before spotting some more trouble that required his attention: officers pinned by gunfire of Joke goons and there was no one to help. Or was there?

"Don't worry, Booster Gold's got your back!" He proudly declared before landing straight in front of the goons, watching the bullets harmlessly ricochet off his shields. Making sure they were set to stun, Booster gave the goons a little taste of his power blasts.

Knowing that they wouldn't be getting up anytime soon, Booster turned and faced the cops. Ooh, one of them was pretty hot.

"You saved our butts back there. Good job." The hot one thanked.

"Praise from 'Stone-wall' Montoya? That's new," her partner joked. (AN: Renee Montoya. If you get the joke, kudos to you)

Booster Gold smirked and saluted. "It was no problem for a hero, Ma'am! Gotta jet!"

With that, he took off again. "That was another good one!" He exclaimed. Wow, he really was on a role today! And to think, he was sitting on a bench earlier, moaning that the future had changed again and he'd never get his chance to shine.

Think again! Even the police were beginning to see how awesome he was! It was only a matter of time till he gets on the League, and right next to-

"What the-!?" In his moment of glory and daydreams, Booster Gold paid little attention to his surroundings i.e. a giant tentacle that grabbed his leg and began to shake him back and forth.

A brief moment of adjustment allowed Booster to look down below and see inmates and police both breath in a pink gas, and become like one of things on a scary movie-zombies, yeah, zombies.

'Great! I had one job, watch over the police, and I flunked that too!' Booster Gold self-lamented, perhaps not yet aware that the pink gas was coming his way.

(Black Canary)

"….What is this?" Canary asked calmly.

"It should be here!" Skeets persisted. "My information is hardly ever wrong! About trivial matters like these, that is."

To put it short: the reason everything was so easy was because Skeets lead her in the wrong direction. They stood in an empty room guarded by nothing.

"You're from the future, so you already knew about this event?" Black Canary questioned. "So let's ask a hypothetical question. Say a building that conveniently held the comms array in Arkham was to…fall down. By that chance, would it be moved to somewhere….say here?"

If machines could look flustered, Skeets definetly would be. "That…..isn't outside the realm of logic."

Black Canary would have face-palmed herself if she lacked proper tact. She should have seen this coming. She was taking the directions of a futuristic machine whose info is based of events that might be, not what is.

"D-Do not worry, Miss Canary!" Skeets spoke quickly. "It'll be easy for me to recalibrate my set of schematics with a more….updated version. It'll only take me a few moments."

"-And in that time, we will catch up old times." Came a different voice, from behind them both.

Black Canary spun quickly and got into a defensive style while Skeets did the smart thing and got behind her. The figure in the doorway was a shadowy one, and certainly not alone, but the smaller companion wore all black, and therefore unrecognizable.

But Canary knew the tall one. Wearing the darkest of red and in possession of one of the most deadliest bodies in the history of unarmed combat. A woman with long, black hair, and a face that has seen death in her own life and in the life of those who the misfortune of crossing her path.

"Shiva." Canary all but spat out her name. She had a rivalry with Shiva, Canary who prided her skills in the martial arts has faced defeat at the hands of the martial genius that was Shiva time and time again. But she did manage to beat Shiva a couple times too, making the score between them unfinished.

"Calm yourself," spoke Shiva. "I am not here to fight you."

Despite knowing Shiva to be a woman of truth and a certain aspect of honor, Canary didn't let up her stance, even for a moment. She briefly eyed the one who was with Shiva, a child.

"A new progeny?" She questioned. Shiva stared down at the girl.

"My daughter, Cassandra." Shiva's answer shocked Canary. Shiva's belief was that only the strongest male alive could ever lay with her, and have children. And since she's technically considered the most deadly human female on the planet, her standard is ridiculously high.

"That would explain why you dropped off the radar for some time." Canary replied.

"I was training her," Shiva replied. "You see, she's quite anxious to finally meet her father."

Chapter completed!

Guys, you don't know how late I stayed up, finishing this chapter! It's midnight turning 1 in about….. six minutes. No wait, five. Nevermind!

OOOHHHHH bet'cha didn't see that coming! What coming? A lot of things coming! What's gonna happen? Who's going to save Booster Gold? What's gotten Artemis in a bind? What's Joker planning? Who's Cassandra's father-that's so obvious by now-, what about the SUICIDE SQUAD!?

…..Does it feel like this whole chapter is a big cliffhanger? I get that feeling. Oh well.

Let's not forget about the assassin in the very beginning, that was weird. What does he want that's so important to kidnap children for some maniac to kill and bathe in their blood? Gruesome? That's the world of DC for ya. Who's the last girl? Do we know her?

Anyway, tune in next time (and by next time, I swear I don't mean next year)

MAY THE FLAMES OF YOUTH BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS)