"I was five and she was six
We rode on horses made of sticks
I wore black and she wore white
I would always win the fight."

Bang Bang, Monophonics

As Frank used Batgirl's Batcycle to close the distance to his brother's would be murderer he came to the realization that B.F Skinner was a bastard. Conditioning was a bitch when it was harmless but when someone like Mother Patrick used on kids… well that when things became truly ugly. Every synapse in his brain was coming up with effective and quick ways to deal with Mirror but none of them where what he wanted. No, he wanted to make it slow, take his time, and rip out all the information the bastard had about the people who sent him after his brother.

There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Black Mask was responsible for the assassin targeting Joe.

Not a one.

Which meant that he'd have to deal with Batgirl before he could drag Mirror into the Underground and give him some of what the Gather House did to Frank.

First strike would be to the back of the neck. Strong enough to knock them unconscious but not to leave permanent nerve damage, no grappling, no fancy techniques, just a simple strike. Then the real would start… they would then drag his limp body to the old water tank that had partially sunk into the swampland and lock him up for days at a time. He'd cry and beg but that didn't matter until it was time for the scalpel…

Frank pushed those thoughts away. They wouldn't him help reach Mirror and they wouldn't help him shatter him. Instead he focused on the roaring machine beneath him and what he could discern about its origins. He knew the motor was Wayne tech. All Wayne tech motors had a particular hum that was meant to quiet the roar their powerful engines could produce. Kord later adopted this style of motor when they merged with Wayne industries. It was a contrast to Luthor's much louder motor. Luthor wanted his motors to remind whoever heard them of the all American muscle cars, to create a sense of pride and profit from the excess fuel consumption with his 'monopoly' His gloved hand twisted the bike's handle just enough to make the engine roar.

'Focus on the man in front of you.' He thought to himself as he teleported to the next roof. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the roof that they landed on except that it was a trap. It had fans to suck in air into the building and vents that released heat, there was simply to many thing s going on for Frank to keep track of while moving at high speeds, but the problem was that he had noticed it. It was just to late to react when he did.

In the moment that it took him to teleport to said roof, Mirror had connected the claw like device that he had used to zoom from building to building and used it as a type of tripwire for the motorcycle.

He had a moment to react before they flipped over… a moment to either bail and leave Batgirl to at worst die or he could shield her with his armor. One would eliminate a potential pestilence that would interfere with his retribution; the other would possibly hurt him lowering his chances of catching Mirror. One proved Mother Patrick wrong, that she hadn't broken him… the other proved that she had succeeded in creating the weapon she set out to forge.

Since he wasn't a complete asshole the choice was rather easy, he just had to imagine that it was Harper and he had pushed himself to move faster than he thought he ever could.

The armor took the brunt of the impact as they slid across the still wet roof until Frank smashed into a metal vent. He gasps for breath as he pushed Batgirl away; it's enough of a struggle without her weight on top of him. Batgirl scrambles to her feet without looking back and gives chase while he tries to reabsorb as much oxygen as he could.

He doesn't take it personally and just ads it to his inexperience making him miss, in hindsight, an obvious trap. After a few more seconds of heavy breathing Frank felt well enough to push himself off the ground and resume his chase. But as her reached the edge of the building he stopped and cursed under his breath. He didn't have the slightest notion about the teleporter's range and as much as he trusted its creators… he wasn't going to jump off a building to potentially become street pizza. Sure, he'd done it with the bike but that vehicle gave him added momentum to close the gap.

What he could do on the other hand is activate the small tracker that he'd left on Batgirls cape when he had shielded her from the crash. The tracker came in an x shaped bug that dug into the fabric with some difficulty. Frank briefly wonders what kind of material the cape was made out of but brushed it off the before the tracker relayed its signal.

A small blip out of the corner of the screen indicated that the chase was back on.

XxX

James Gordon was not having a good day, which was usual since he had moved to Gotham.

Cheshire was running around the city killing Black Mask's men left and right; Someone had made an attempt against Bruce Wayne's life which they had been warned about a day before the attempt by a man pinned to a wall by a hundred small daggers that had an owl engraved into the handle; Batman was clearing the old railways, trying to find the assassin that went after Wayne while causing a disruption to the underworld scum who used them to smuggle contraband into Gotham; and now some maniac calling himself Mirror had shot up a hospital, killed a prisoner under the watch of two of his finest detectives, killing one of said detectives and both the officers, and attempted to murder Joseph Lawton while he was sedated.

Normally, it would be the death of his men that sent his blood into a boil but that was an after thought. Joe had been like a son to Jim, used to watch over Babs and little Franky while they played in the streets. Never started fights with the other kids, never got arrested for partying… never succumbed to Gotham's Darkness. Jim's own blood had. Where Junior went onto become a prolific Serial Killer that was so dangerous that they had put him in cell next to the Joker, Joe became a nurse just so he could get his little brother back.

He's lucky that his daughter isn't back to her nocturnal 'activities' and completely focused on getting her life back together. It was a dangerous time in Gotham it, even more dangerous because of the Joker's absence, Lex Luthor setting up shop, and the escape of Black Mask. Penguin would either move to restore the Black and White Alliance or go on the offensive and eliminate Sionis before he could become a problem. More and more kids in clown costumes were popping up by the day…

Gordon sighed as he made his way to where there where treating his surviving detective. McKenna, the surviving detective, was struggling against two orderlies that were trying their best to put her on a stretcher. "Get your hand off of me!" She thrashed.

"Ma'am, you need to stop moving." One of them urged as grappled with her legs. "We need to-" A leg got loose and smacked the man in the chest nearly knocking him over but Jim was close enough to keep the man on his feet.

"That's enough, McKenna." And it really was. After McKenna had been hit she crawled over to the next room to try to protect Joe. Jim had been in the thick of it before, taken a few bullets and even in the shape that he was in back then he doubted he had the grit to do the same.

The detective stopped her struggling with a soft 'sir' but managed to sit up just as quickly as they laid her down. "They won't tell me what happened to the kid, sir, they wont even let me into check-"

"Lawton's fine, the drugs they gave him kept him under through the whole thing but Paul didn't make it." Paul really was a good officer, started in the GCPD around the time that Jim had but like most other cops he steered clear of Jim because he had the common sense to know that Commissioner Lobe had it out for him. It was a tragedy but this was Gotham and

Melody shook her head vehemently. "Not the patient. A kid maybe eighteen, maybe a little, dark hair, wearing a hoodie. Said he was the patient's brother. He wasn't in the room when Batgirl left."

Gordon's gloved hand tightened around his umbrella handle as two world-changing pieces of information were being processed. Frank… he'd seen him the day before to tell him about what had happened to his brother and now he was, potentially, in a hostage situation with a fucking mad man!

Other than that and the grim mask that had become his face, he was completely composed. He reached for the phone in his coat and put it to his ear. The phone rang twice before it was answered.

"What's happening, Jim?" Captain Margaret Sawyer, head of the Major Crimes Unit, answered the phone. She was newer than most of the people he considered to be friends but she was right up there with Bullock. She'd been given her position before the earthquake that took down half the city.

McKenna looked at least ten years older than she did this morning and grew and looked to be aging even faster as the Commissioner explained the situation Sawyer. "Shooting suspect, code name Mirror, has a hostage. Frank Lawton eighteen years old, black hair, about five ten to six feet tall. With any luck Batgirl will recue the hostage before Mirror decides to kill him. I want all available unites looking for him. He's responsible for the deaths of four of our own and a few civilians."

…

He paused; giving Sawyer time to digest is order and time to cool his head. He knew that he couldn't allow emotion to dictate his actions but this attack felt personal. Barbara was in danger and kid he had seen grow into a man was now hostage to a mad man with an unknown agenda… how could he not make it personal? This city had taken so much form Jim and Barbara.

XxX

She froze and that was all it took for Mirror to gain enough distance to almost lose her.

She wasn't used to the running, the rolling, or the impact that ran up her spine every time she landed on a new rooftop but none of that stopped her from chasing Mirror down. It wasn't exactly difficult as it was simply wearing her down. Years in a wheel chair had chipped away at her stamina despite her best efforts to keep her paralyzed legs in shape.

She had frozen when she most certainly could have caught up to him if she hadn't stopped to wonder if she could make the jump.

She was desperate now and in her desperation she had incorrectly measured the distance and the force she needed to clear the space between the buildings. The problem wasn't that she didn't make it, she had made the jump fine but the momentum, angle of descent, and weather caused her to skid over the edge of said roof and onto the man she was pursuing.

Mirror yelped in pain caused by the impact and screamed as he fell. Barbara wasn't' sure what the cop killer was thinking as he fell but she was more worried about what they would say to her dad… how would they explain that they found her broken body in her batsuit…

She manages to land on window's ledge and steady still herself. The impact causes Barbara to grit her teeth and dig her hands onto her abused legs. Her eyes shut closed as thoughts of how she shouldn't be here assault her mind. She's rust but she can handle a few kids playing serial killer but Mirror was in another league. He was trained and had gear that resembled Bruce's.

He fought savagely but efficiently, like a soldier. By the way he moved she could tell that he had to at least be special operations But all those small calculations flew out the window the second she heard him beg for her to rescue him.

"I can't die like this!" The plea was so human that it tugged at Barbara's heartstrings but she couldn't help but snap at the man who had murdered so many in a single night.

"Then you shouldn't have killed a cop!" 'What if it had been dad?' But that doesn't stop her from reaching down to try to help him up. He needed to face the consequences of his actions; he couldn't do that if he was dead.

"You don't understand. I'm not supposed to die this way, Batgirl…" He murmured while reaching for her. Their gloved fingers brushed together for a second but in that second Mirror grabbed her wrist. "You are."

Barbara was shocked as she was sent plummeting to the earth once more. Everything was in slow motion as she fell. Mirror was going in the same direction as always… towards the Hollows, if she had to guess. Not that it would mean much, the nearest surface she could grapple to was the window she had been pulled off of and that would be cut as soon as it connected… everything else was out of range.

She looked at the torrential rain that plagued Gotham's sky and absorbed the details of the clouds one last time. She wanted to say she accepted death in those final moments but in truth she was terrified of the idea.

She closed her eyes and waited for the impact only for it to not come as hard as she imagined it would and from the wrong direction. Instead of an explosion of pain coming from her side, Barbara was struck from the side. She felt strong arms wrap around her torso as the momentum carried her though an open window and to the adjacent building.

"Dick?" She asks, almost certain its her best friend/ slash on and off fling only to be met with a stylized skull looking down at her with a slightly tilted head.

"Maybe later." The distorted voice of her savior responded with a dry but amused tone. "But first we have to get the bad guy, right?"

XxX

A/N: sorry for the delay but my computer died last month and i had wait some time before i could get it fixed. Lost some of my documents, including this chapter, Short change Hero and the next Blue Horizon chapters with it but had a much older back up ready for when i got it fixed. Which really sucks but I'll manage. Thank you for your patience and your support, please drop a review if you feel iike it.