"Hey lil' D! Don't you have dance classes to go to?"
"Grayson, it's mandatory. And they aren't 'classes'." Damian spat back at his oldest brother, leaning back in the large chair in the cave behind an even larger computer screen. The green domino mask still on the youngest Wayne's face by the adhesive, applying a warm rag to his face in the eye area so he can loosen it up enough to take it off. 

Lately, there's been something going on during the day that needs Batman and Robin. It's why he's been taken out of school so much lately. The thing is, what's going on actually involves the school.

Damian's noticed some classmates of his going missing, and when he went into the office and got to the schools records about it, it was obvious in the evidence that some students have just stopped coming. And he saw this in the students who slept in the dorms, too. Not the students who it was likely this would be happening to.

"The practice doesn't start until an hour. I have time to do more things and process more evidence around the cave." IT was a curt and quick answer, Damian closed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders when he answered. As fond as he was of Dick, being the one sibling he got along with, or tolerated, the best. Dick still teased him, reasons? He's his little brother, Dick's got the right to tease Damian. Damian doesn't understand this logic, but still gets annoyed every single time.

"Got anybody interesting in your 'not-classes'?" Dick asked, being able to take off the black domino mask from his own face. Allowing those bright blue eyes like crystals and pools of water to e shown, instead of the white lenses over the black mask. Taking a seat next to Damian, the chair was slightly smaller and it felt as though the two should switch.

Dick with his bent knees and leaning forwards, boots to the ground. Then there's Damian, who can't reach the ground. This is all because he stunned his growth, as Alfred predicted. Now this kids taking as many height vitamins as he can without it being a health hazard. This wasn't his choice, either. He keeps saying his height give himself an advantage in combat. OF course, whenever Jason actually does stop by in Gotham to pay a visit, he's always cracking jokes about when Damian actually gets the girl, if he ever does, she'll be an entire head taller than him. And naturally, Damian still doesn't understand anything Jason says when he's trying to be cool. (Which he isn't, Todd is the farthest thing from cool.)

In the dimly lit cave, the blue lights bounce off every object that has a surface to reflect. Droplets of water are falling from the ceiling every couple seconds. The shuffling of bats above head is a thing that's always heard. And i it isn't being heard? It's usually a bad thing. Dick and Damian both glance to the end of the cave, where the Bat-Mobile is still gone.

"You know those five students that got personally invited to the Gala?" Damian asked, leaning his elbow onto the clear glass table and closing his eyes. Then turning to face the large projection monitor before him and placing his chin in his hand.

"Yeah? What 'about them." Dick asked, it wasn't harsh or rude. As far as Dick knew, they were just smart kids who got a good opportunity. Minus the fact that half of them had to move to Gotham. That's not exactly a good thing.

"I looked into their backgrounds. Jaime Reyes was around the scene of a crime when an ancient artifact was stolen. The thing is, the artifact was on the Justice League watch list and when I look at security footage, it wasn't stolen by Jaime Reyes. He wasn't even in the building. Then when I got into father's logs into the Watchtower-"

"Damian, you can't do that."
"-I found that it's alien technology." Damian opened his eyes and turned to glare at Dick, now being able to pull away the green domino mask to reveal those bright green narrowed annoyed eyes.

Dick had a straight face, if there was anybody who was going to hack into the Watch Tower's private logs to find Bruce's, it would definitely be his son. Thankfully, Bruce records everything. Though it may not be for happy sunshine reasons, but he still records everything.

"Demetria Taughtfest, I looked into her background too. Not much is there, her brother got into a car crash a couple years ago. Street racing. And the reason Demetria Taughtfest here is due to fencing. Which made no logical sense to me at first, given her physical appearance. Then I looked into her hospital records." Damian finished, crossing his arms and leaning back in the chair a little bit more.

"She has something embedded into her spine. The doctor couldn't make out what it was, so it went without being written on the notes. IF I can get a clear X-ray of her spine, I can identify it. MY best bet is, she has technology there that shouldn't be there. Something to help her get better at fencing, you could say-"

"So she could get into the Academy without having the credentials for it?" Dick asked, only so Damian could make that obnoxious 'TT' sound whenever he gets annoyed. Watching as the youngest boy in the room pulled his legs up onto the chair, crossing them before shoving a strand of thick black hair back.

"I haven't mentioned something yet on purpose because it was obvious you would come to that conclusion. She was in the car when her brother crashed it, and he's dead. Should I remind you, this car was going over 100mph."

"What did the car crash into?" Dick asked, raising an eyebrow. Not all car crashes are fatal, but this one sounds so.

"Another car, head on collision."
Dick winced at that, looking down at the ground. That had to be a painful death. Maybe quick, it depended. The driver would have been thrown through the front window, if not buckled in. Other than that? The driver would have slammed their head on the steering wheel hard enough to die instantly, if nothing else happened before that.

"What happened to Demetria?" Dick asked, noting how she's obviously, by some miracle, still alive today.

"She walked away from it with heavy bruises and cuts to her lower legs and forearms. There was a deep gash on her forehead,  but she had no broken bones. Whatever i embedded into her spine is not only giving her an advantage in fencing, but it's given her an advantage in keeping her life as well." Damian answered smoothly as if he was reading it all right before him.

"Didn't she come from Metropolis? Street racing there, it can get out of hand sometimes." And yes, Dick would know. And so would Jason. Not that either of them are proud of it, well Jason might be. And if Dick ever got somebody, or himself too seriously hurt during a street race? Maybe he wouldn't look back on it as if it were a fonder memory. Hey, sometimes those races gave him a clear excuse to have bruises or a splint on his ankle or wrist during a gala when nosy reporters would ask him how he got them.

"She came from Metropolis, Grayson." Damian stated again, this time more stern as if he was shoving the answer right in front of his older brothers face. Demanding the answer to be read off of bright neon paper.

"You think she has something to do with Supes'? Damian, if that were the case then she wouldn't have even been bruised in the car crash. She probably could have prevented it from happening." Dick answered, shrugging his shoulders.

"No, I think Lex Luthor has something to do with her. It shows here that he reached out to her right after my father did. A 'promising' surgery to fix what happened to her that night, as of something did. Also bringing up how she can get the density of her bones reversed. I found the e-mail a couple hours ago, but I had to get rid of it because it was tracable."

"Lex Luthor doesn't just help people out from the good of his heart. IF she has something embedded into her spine that's making her this way, I don't think he'd care if it killed her to get it out for himself." Dick was quick to answer, knowing Kon quite well meant he knew about his past. And how Lex got away with what happened to Kon. It's completely unfair, and there's a reason why Kon isn't Superboy right now. It's not just because of Jon coming into the picture, there was more to it. Only Dick and Tim know from it personally, as the two were friends with Kon. But whatever Lex could have wanted with Demetria? It wouldn't be good.

"And then there's Cissie King-Jones. I know why father chose her to come, because I was the one who pointed this out to him. Grayson, what do you think of when you hear Star City?" Damian asked, picking up a notebook and a pen before scribbling a circle in the top left corner to test the green ink.

"Green Arrow, why?" Dick asked, knowing Roy pretty well. And knowing that Roy's currently on a job with Jason, which means this doesn't include him. Makes Dick feel a little more at ease, knowing what type of past Roy has and everything.

"Miss Arrowette was a vigilante around the time that Green Arrow was beginning, after a couple of years her actions died down. My assumption, is that she had a child. And as of two years ago, a vigilante calling herself Arrowette was going around Star City." Damian started, doodling a perfect circle and drawing a line through it to even it out and fix any mistakes so the circle could actually be more accurate.

"Wait, so Bruce got a vigilante in on this?"
"You did not let me finish." Damian paused, as he lifted the pen from the circle and started to draw the bottom half of the face and the shape of a jaw.

"Cissie King-Jones was not allowed to participate in the junior Olympics. She's best at the longbow, but her mother wouldn't allow her to try out for Olympics. Now, Arrowette uses a longbow. Just like Miss Arrowette did, and there are obvious similar looks. The costumes are very similar, but it's obviously another person. Nearly thirty years later, too. Think of it as a mantle being passed down-"

"From mother to daughter." Dick finished, earning a green pen thrown at his face for cutting off his younger brother again. "Lately, theres been sightings of a female Red-Arrow in Gotham. Unaware of the fact it's actually Arrowette. Her suit is red, so the misconception is obvious to see how it could be made. White skirt, white boots, black Kevlar vest and a read leather jacket?  Add bows an arrows, and as far as people are concerned, it's Red Arrow."

Damian shifted a little bit in his chair while he grabbed the green pen back.

"Anthony Drew, he's in the academy because of his knowledge on computers. He's good with programs, and infamously? Hacking. One mistake he made was attempting to get into the Government's own personal files. All on a dare. There's really not much more to him, other than the fact that he was successful in doing so before getting caught for attempting to do it a second time." Damian finished right as the bat-mobile came visible on the screen, driving across the water on the road that rose to the surface, opening the main gate so it could enter the cave where it should be.

"What about the last one? There was five." Dick asked, standing up from the chair as Damian followed suit, a drawing of an eight year old girl he did from memory was on the paper.

"(Y/n) (L/n). I'm not sure, she's normal. She's an expert in fencing, and she seems to have gotten in honestly. No advantages to be seen. She's normal, Grayson. I do no understand why she was one of the five Father personally invited." Damian was quick and smooth at speaking.

Bruce got out of the bat-mobile, pulling the cowl back and off of his face. In his hand?

An evidence bag holding the gun you had in your hands no less than two days ago.

***************************************

Fencing is so much fun for you.

But lately, it hasn't been enough. Why? Because you have to hold back. Always, constantly, holding yourself back. When all you want to do is go full on out, a real challenge. Just what every competitive person wants. Somebody truly on their level. Hell, a rival even.

Warm ups? You hated them, but you were better at the fencing. You worked well with speed and agility Speed and agility training is probably your strongest suit when it comes to warm ups. The fencing class, that the school offers, has six students total.

Demetria is one of them. You actually haven't seen much of the other students that attended the Gala that were on the Scholarship. You see Jaime in the halls, pass by him and wave hello. He seems to talk to himself sometimes? You do it as well, but with Jaime it seems a little...different. Like he's arguing. And half the time, it's in Spanish. Cissie is always so busy, but lately she's had a splint on her leg. When you asked her about it, she gave out a really rushed answer about falling off the roof of her house. Trying to get a Frisbee. It raised some questions with you, but you didn't push further.

One thing you noticed about Demetria? She's very strong.  But she has little to no muscle mass. You've seen her trip and fall and protect her face with her arms on the concrete. You're literally so shocked she didn't at the very least fracture her elbow. She just had a couple nasty bruises there for a while, and she dealt with it as if sticking  band-aid on it meant everything was perfectly fine.

"(Y/n)! Focus!" The coach, Mrs. Stan yelled out to you. The ladder workouts for controlled speed was what the class was doing right now. You've never had a coach make the fencers wear the plastic chest plate while warming up, but she said it was to make you all use to wearing them. Assuming that everyone in the room is a beginner, you chose not to point out your long list of awards and achievements so you wouldn't look like a douche bag.

Stepping in each indivigual open space of the ladder quickly, running with your knees raised high and looking down to make sure your feet actually make it into the open spaces on the hardwood floor. The white and blue Nike running shoes you wore made squeaking noises against the ground, along with scuff marks. Followed by the same actions of the other fencers behind you. 

Wearing a dark blue tank top that hugged close to your body, along with a white plastic chest plate with the schools crest on it was fairly uncomfortable. You're more use to wearing the heavy white jacket on over it. Whereas most people would find extra weight and heat uncomfortable in those situations, it actually makes you feel safer. Like it should.

The capri black leggings with the two blue stripes down either side of your legs on the outside did get you some sly remarks, apparently that's a vigilante thing. You didn't know, but it's not something you particularly care about. You did catch yourself fairly annoyed, because not only did this cost you a bit of money out of your own wallet? But then to be compared to said vigilante in terms with your agility as a joke. Why are there so many vigilantes in Gotham? Portland is so much more comfortable, it's taking you some time to adjust.

Your hair moved along with you when you ran, having it tied into a side braid. Loose and messy, as strands would fly to the side and flyaway's would constantly get in your face. A hair cut was due in time.

Agility training was basically that, but you really needed to work on flexibility. Having other fencers in the room help you, Demetria would sometimes do tht.

She wore light grey shorts and a black Tank top, her long white hair was tied back into a high ponytail and a black headband was placed to keep her hair tight down and bangs out of her face. Her shorts stopped above her knees, loose like basketball shorts. When you saw her from the side, she had no curves on her body at all. She was literally as flat as a board, and she looked like a twelve year old from a distance.

Now, you're not insulting her. This is worry. And a little bit of fear, because you've seen her fence and she's extremely good. You've never fenced her, but she's good. And this scares you, because she looks so weak. You can easily spot the shape of her hip bones through the shorts, and the very bottom of her tank top. And her light pinkish red eyes are almost always sunken in. If you have to slip melatonin into this girls food just to make sure she gets some real rest, you would. Unfortunately, that's illegal and you should probably stop worrying so much for strangers.

Whenever she came to help you out though, it seemed a little hurtful. Not emotionally, but it's like you expected her to be a little gentle just by her appearance. Wrong, oh very very wrong. She made you learn all the way forward when you had your legs in a V position, with her hand in the center of your back until your chest touched the ground. Obviously she didn't do this quickly, she did it slowly. But still, it was more than you were asking for.

None the less, the entire hour of practice and warm ups went by quickly to you, and before you even knew it? It was time to head off to that same choreography room where you meet Damian nearly everyday. Hopefully, he's there this time.