2 Chapter 1

—Three Years Later—

In Gotham City there was a group of criminals that were sitting in a circular table with chairs with their bodyguards behind them.

"The hell you say?" One criminal said, "You didn't set this up, then who's party is this?"

"I thought it was you eastside losers," the criminal who sat across said, "you already rolled over for the Black Mask and I figured that you were gonna ask us in."

"Roll over?" Another gang leader said, "the mask whacked six of my crew in a month, six! Some of my best people."

"Did you set up this meeting?" the first one asked.

"Nah. I thought it was Chi Chi."

"Wasn't my meeting."

"Oh, the hell with this. I'm gone. You brain donore wanna hang around and—"

"Sit down, Freddie," a voice said.

The criminals looked up to see a silhouette which made all of them stand up. "It's my meeting," the voice said.

"It's him," a gang member said.

"Batman?"

"We didn't do nothing."

The silhouette walked out and there was a man who wore all black. He had some stealth nanofiber boots, black camo pants with kneepads and gadget pouches and a knife pouch each thigh had a silenced pistol that looked custom-made, a black combat hoodie with a vest of some kind over it. He wore a black balaclava mask and had trifocal goggles on his head. He walked out with a silenced semi-automatic sniper rifle in his hand.

"We all know that's a damn lie," the black-clad man said.

"Smoke him!" The criminals took out their pistols, but the guns were out of commision when they were shot off of their hands. They looked up at the man in shock, this guy had a crazier aim than Deadshot.

"I said, sit down!" the man and black said. The criminals looked at each other and then back at the man dressed in black, "listen to me you scumbags, I will be running the trade from now on. You aided the most prosperous street dealers in Gotham, I'm offering you idiots a deal. You go about your business as usual, but kick up 40% to me. That's a much sweeter deal than the scraps Black Mask is giving you. In protection you have full protection from Batman, but you stay away from kids and schoolyards. No dealing to or of children, got it? If you do, you're dead?"

"Okay kid this is all very generous," a criminal said, "but why the hell should we listen to you and what about Black Mask?"

The man in black threw a duffle back that landed on the table so the criminals zipped it opened and they were mortified. They saw the decapitated heads of some of their men, it even had Deadshot's head and Black Mask's head inside it.

"Damn."

"Those are the heads of all your lieutenants, Black Mask, and Deadshot," the man in black said, "that took me two hours. Want to see what I can do in the whole evening?"

He aimed the rifle at the dealers, "Make no mistake, I'm not asking you to kick in with me. I'm telling you to." He threw a flashbang which made all the cons disoriented for a brief moment and when they were looking to see where the man in black was, he was nowhere.

—–——

Batman and a new Robin, Dick Grayson were tracking down a shipment that Oracle was telling them about. They have been trying to track down who this new management is because they were informed that both Black Mask and his personal Mercenary Deadshot was dead. They had managed to take down three goons in a truck full of drugs and were interrogating them.

"This shipment was meant for the new criminal who works around town," Batman said, "who do you work for?"

"I swear I'm not working for anyone," the criminal said, "this was our gig, our idea."

Batman started walking over to them and they started to cower, "O-Okay I'll talk! Archer, he calls himself Archer we don't have a choice! He's got a—" before he could finish, he was shot in the head as well as the other goons. Batman and Robin took cover, "The shots came from a rooftop, a sniper! And a good one, better than Deadshot," Robin said.

"Oracle, do you know where he is?" Batman asked.

"I do," Barbara said through the comms. "I'm bringing the batwing over now."

The Batwing flew over to fetch Batman and Robin called out for him, "Wait!" Robin grunted, "Great leave me here with them, now I'm starting to wish I joined Kaldur on the mission to find Nelson."

—–——

Batman was in the Batwing chasing down Archer who was jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He soon jumped off a building and did a safety roll to not sustain any damage. He soon got in a blue car and started to drive off with Batman following. Archer looked through the wing mirror he was driving in and saw Batman who was following him so he went into the tunnel which Batman was able to fly through. The detective shot a cable that had a hook and stuck onto the hood of the car Archer was driving. Archer waited until they got out of the tunnel to pop off the hood and drove into a warehouse that Batman saw him get in. So he got out of the Batwing and went inside the warehouse.

"Oracle I'm going in," Batman said.

"Alright," Barbara said, "Dick is on his way right now as we speak."

"Okay." Batman walked into the warehouse and after a minute he heard a voice. "You know Batman, you had many great failures."

Batman looked back to see a man with stealth nanofiber boots, black camo pants with kneepads and gadget pouches and a knife pouch each thigh had a silenced pistol that looked custom-made, a black combat hoodie with a vest of some kind over it. He wore a black balaclava mask and had trifocal goggles on his head. He had a sniper rifle over his back. He then threw a smoke grenade, making Batman cover his mouth so he could see through it and then noticed that Archer was gone.

—–——

In the Batcave, Barbara was sitting in a rolling chair as she pulled up a photo of Archer who was on a rooftop. To give you a bit of backstory on her, she had soon stopped being Batgirl when Sam had died, she didn't find the thrill of it and just gave up fighting crime. Instead, Batman gave her an opportunity to be an information broker and hacker for him and Robin, thus giving her the codename Oracle.

"I managed to get a photo of the Archer," Barbara said.

"Do we know of his origins?" Batman asked.

"No," Barbara said, "most of if not all the gear can be traced back to Fourth Echelon."

Batman and Robin who was now unmasked were also looking at the crime rates and were surprised to see it going down. "Do you think he can be connected to Fisher?" Barbara asked.

"I don't know," Batman said, "But I'm going to find out, Robin."

Robin followed Batman as they were going to question Fisher who is residing in Gotham currently.

Barbara sighed as she looked at the Robin suit Sam wore before he died. She then took out a photo of her and Sam together, the photo was almost three years old. The 16 year-old Barbara sighed as she got up. She saw Alfred who was giving her some coffee, "Hello Miss Gordon."

"Hey Alfred," Barbara said, "I'm heading out."

"Well at least let me give you a ride back home," Alfred said.

Barbara smiled, "Sure, thank you."

————

Batman and Robin were in Washington D.C, talking to Sam Fisher the commander of Fourth Echelon. "There has been someone who has been taking your things," Batman said, "we were wondering if he was in relation to you. He goes by the name of Archer."

Sam Fisher who was sitting across from Batman and Robin was looking off to the side. "Archer was one of my partners. He was one of the best agents we've had, but after we took down the Blacklist, he stepped away from being an agent and we gave him the weapons and suit as a thanks for what he has done for us."

"Clearly he's killed Black Mask and Deadshot with your weapons," Batman said, "but you make the point that he's no longer associated with you guys as he quit after the fall of Sadiq."

Batman sighed as he got up and nodded to Fisher, "Thank you for your time, Zero."

"Of course, Batman," Fisher said.

————

When Batman and Robin returned to Gotham, they were patrolling and Oracle was in the batcave using the batcomputer. They were looking around and then saw Archer who was taking a sniping position to what looks like to be the window to Commissioner Gordon's house. Batman knew too well that he was aiming at the window that was Barbara's, but he didn't know why. He and Robin used their grappling guns to swing over to Archer who saw them. "Huh, guess I gotta roll," the ex-agent said.

He started to jump off the building to land on a construction site. He landed on the board which broke as he did a safety roll. He ran around the corner and looked back to see Batman and Robin tailing him. He saw Batman throwing a batarang at him so he ran into the site by making a left. He saw some wood in the way and broke through it to which he saw a fire tank. He picked it up as he ran to a window pane and jumped out of it. He threw the tank and turned his body with his suppressed pistol to shoot the tank. He did a roll and rand along the metal beams and jumped down to escape and jumped to another building.

The chase kept going until Archer saw a blimp that he was able to land on. He didn't hesitate to draw out his dual silenced pistols and started shooting at them. Batman and Robin were taking cover. "Now I'm starting to wish I went on the Kent Nelson mission," Robin said.

"Focus," Batman said. He later looked around and saw he was on the rooftop that wasn't too far from the blimp. So they jumped to the blimp and then to the other rooftop so that they could chase Archer. The Dynamic Duo managed to catch up and Batman shot a rope to wrap it around Archer's leg only for it to be cut through.

"He's good," Robin said.

"He is," Batman said. They kept chasing Archer and saw him going into the train station. "Now that's impressive," Robin said.

"Nothing we have seen before," Batman said. Robin shrugged as the two jumped and landed in the train station. They were looking around until they heard beeping and saw a bomb counting down.

"Move!"

As the duo ran the bomb exploded knocking them over. They got up as they heard a motorcycle revving. They saw Archer on the motorcycle who said, "You haven't lost your touch—"

The last part was muffled as a train was in the way of Batman and Robin's vision. They jumped out of the way and looked to see that he disappeared.

————

Batman, Robin, and Oracle were looking at the footage of Archer. "He's got some move huh?" Dick asked. "He does," Barbara said in agreement, "not to mention the moment where he cut the cable with ease."

"You don't just do that," Dick said, "that needs to be practiced, learned."

"Then there's the knife," Bruce said.

"What about it?" Barbara asked.

"You two know many knives that can cut my lines?" Bruce asked the two. The thirteen year-old Boy Wonder and the sixteen year-old looked at each other and then to Bruce. "Not many."

Bruce started to play footage of Archer talking about not having lost his touch.

"You haven't lost your touch Br—"

Bruce started to dissect the audio until he got, "You haven't your touch Bruce!"

Bruce, Dick, and Barbara's reactions were of shock.

This made Barbara wonder why Archer was looking at her through the window. She couldn't think now, she was too tired to do so.

"Alfred, take Barbara home," Bruce said.

Alfred nodded and Barbara was taken home. As they were heading out of the manor, Barbara wanted to stop by to see Sam's grave for a second. When she did she noticed something wrong so she ran back into the manor to get a shovel to dig up Sam's grave. She managed to get to the coffin, but before she opened it, she took a deep breath and opened it with a crowbar and saw Sam's body, but she noticed that the body wasn't flesh.

"Miss Gordon what are you doing?" Alfred asked.

"Get Bruce," Barbara said, "this body is latex."

…

When Bruce and Dick came down he went to see what Barbara was showing them and noticed that it was indeed latex. Which made Batman go inside the cave and change into Batman.

"Where are you going?" Barbara asked.

"To talk to the man who did this," Batman said.

Batman got into the Batwing to fly to a certain immortal who had apparently revived Sam.