The Bait

Peace was a delicate thing, especially in Gotham.

All it took was one piece to fall and the entire structure would collapse, chaos would run rampant as all sides fought one another over every last vestige of power. There were many times in the history of Gotham that the dominos had fallen, and many could all be traced back to one person, the person who pushed the first piece.

The Batman.

In his early years, he had been an unstoppable force of pure violence, ruthlessly tearing through every inch of Gotham in an almost desperate attempt to change Gotham City for the better. Of course, it didn't work.

Gotham City couldn't be cured through simple force of will, nor through such simple means. If it could, the city would have been cured a long time ago. Except, the city was arguably worse than it had been in the past. Batman had torn through the city, weakening and destroying every organisation in his pursuit of justice. But all he did was leave the door open for the parasites to follow him through, fighting over the ruins he had left behind and grown stronger because of it.

All the while, they adapted and learned, changing their ways of committing crimes in order to better combat the vigilante. Batman may have been fighting in the pursuit of justice, of saving Gotham City and while he was doing that, Batman was also the root cause behind Gotham's ever-growing criminal element. He made them smarter, stronger, more dangerous, more ruthless and cruel. Batman made new ones come from every walk of life, every bit as dangerous as those already here, if not more so.

Batman was Gotham's saviour.

But he was also Gotham's criminal enabler.

Jacob knew all this, it was why he had carefully calculated everything, from the moment he shot those that had been his oppressors in school, to then working in the False Face Society all up until he took it over. Even as other crime lords pushed in, Batman had remained quiet, just as Jacob had expected. The Dark Knight was calmer than he had been in his earlier years, he prowled the streets, watching and waiting. But he did not strike the sharks as he had in the past, recklessly and without thought for the aftermath.

No, the Batman waited until he had everything he needed to destroy them so completely, to grind them into dust, all to the point that there was nothing left for the others.

It was why he had been distant despite the attacks upon his territories by the Street Demonz and the others. He waited, only interfering when civilians got involved, a rare occurrence precisely to avoid getting the Batman involved. He watched as the criminals tore each other apart, gathering all the information he could until he was ready.

Time was of the essence as the longer this war dragged on, the more Batman would have on the False Face Society. That was something no one wanted because once Batman moved, all of his territories would become useless. When the Batman would be done, there would be no pre-established garrisons, safehouses, warehouses or supply lines, nothing. Anyone that moved in would then have to rebuild everything from scratch, not to mention fight others for that territory. Which would mean being the next target of Batman.

Jacob needed a solution, something that would remove the Street Demonz from the board completely. Once they were gone, the very nuisance that allowed the other crime lords to push in on his territories, the rest would back away.

The problem was the Street Demonz themselves.

They were a nomadic group of bikers, they had no real base of operations or warehouses. The biker gang just travelled the streets of Gothams, uncaring for borders, hiring themselves out as hired muscles to the highest bidder. A neutral party that was often used in wars and skirmishes by the crime lords in order to preserve the lives of their own soldiers. That meant they were difficult to track down, and while Jacob had seen a number of the Street Demonz killed, he couldn't land that finishing blow.

So, it was why, as he looked at the photos before him, Jacob's lips shifted from a smile to a frown. He smiled because he now had answers, but he then frowned as he realised what those answers meant.

"How did you come across this?" Jacob asked, looking to David who was standing on the other side of his desk, shifting uncomfortably. The earlier warnings he had given still hung over his head like a shadow, weighed upon his shoulders heavily. He was desperate to ensure that he never gave Jacob a reason to follow through on those promises.

"One of your lieutenants, he came across this personally on his way home according to his driver." Jacob hummed, looking down at the photos once more.

It showed a meeting of the Street Demonz in full force along with their leaders, Dallas and Skorp as well as a small-time drug kingpin, the Ventriloquist. It explained who was behind the attacks, the Street Demonz were once again, being used as hired muscle, this time by the Ventriloquist who it seemed wanted to make a push in on his territories.

"He did? What did he use to do in the past, do you know?" Jacob questioned, looking at the pictures that followed, showing the meeting between the three figures before he reached the last one, again nothing different to the previous.

"He was a thief, in the past."

Jacob paused, thinking upon that for a moment. "Mister Franco then." He realised, recognising the positioning of the camera from his own time as a thief, though he had been the eyes and ears, Jacob had always done his own reconnaissance. Having good photography skills was good for such a task, knowing not only where to position himself, but how to get close enough without being seen or suspected. "What happened to him? The images stop after this."

"He was spotted and shot at," David replied. "He had been running back to the car when he was shot repeatedly. Even his driver was hit, though only in the shoulder. He will make a full recovery, however, the chances of Mr Franco making a recovery is slim from reports."

"See to it that his hospitable bills are paid for." Jacob dismissed, gathering up the photos and placing them in a draw for now. He knew now that the Ventriloquist was the real person behind this attack, using the Street Demonz to do it. But that was the strange thing to him, Ventriloquist was making too big of a splash for someone too small.

Jacob managed to make it work because he was an unknown and already inside the False Face Society. But Ventriloquist was already an established face in Gotham, albeit a small one. Making a move like this was not something he should be doing, not with all the sharks smelling blood in the water.

'Something else is going on.' Jacob knew that much, but the question was, what was that something?

Hearing a ping on his computer, Jacob turned curiously to see that he had received an email, strange really. There wasn't anyone who knew his email address, at least not his personal one and that's exactly where he had received this email. He wasn't too concerned, his personal email was done under a pseudo-name and with a completely false history add to the details connected to it.

He would never use his own personal history or anything like that in a place such as this. As this had proved, nothing was secret in Gotham for long, someone was bound to find out the truth eventually. Jacob was under no illusions that he would remain in the shadows forever, eventually, he would have to step out into the open, but that didn't mean he couldn't bide his time and stall for as long as possible.

He would step out when he chose to, at least that way he could control it.

However, Jacob was curious to see what he had gotten and opened the document connected to the email. There was a few standard pictures on it, pictures of him, his bases and a few safehouses. A little show of power that this anonymous person possessed, a bog-standard opening to any anonymous email, Jacob had done the same many times in the past. It got people's attention and made it clear that whatever was really in this document was authentic but also worth their time and effort to pursue.

It was true.

Because in the photo right at the bottom, laid the answer and an invitation.

In the picture, meeting with the Street Demonz, the Ventriloquist was one other person, someone who Jacob knew to be the key to all this.

The White Rabbit.