The Next Generation

Some fifteen hours later, the Watchtower Javelin finally flew in over Metropolis, heading to Stryker's Island Prison, where they'd be keeping Deathstroke for the time being, at least until he went through the whole legal system. They weren't taking any chances with him, either, locking up his arms and legs in security devices that could restrain Superman. he wasn't going to be escaping anywhere. Rose watched with her arms crossed as Batman and Wonder Woman marched the prisoner out of the Javelin and towards the prison entrance.

"Hold on," Deathstroke said, glancing up at Wonder Woman, who was taking the liberty of carrying him... with one hand.

Batman didn't even look back at him, as they kept going. "We're not holding on for anything. You're past the point of making requests."

"Just one minute," he pleaded. It actually sounded like an earnest request, the tone much different from what one familiar with Deathstroke would expect from him. "My front left pocket... two notes. I scribbled them out while you had me in the holding cell. There's one for Rose, one for Neal."

Stopping for a second, Batman glanced over at Deathstroke for a long moment, then finally reached into the man's pocket, pulling out two separate notes. "Take him in, Donna," he said, starting to make his way back towards the other two. "I'll handle this."

Rose smiled as she witnessed her father was finally where he belonged, locked up like the animal that he was. Her nightmare was at long last over, and his influence of her was gone. She could now go on with her life, and work to make a real name for herself. Not just as Rose Wilson, the person, but as Ravager, the hero that her father was anything but. The rest of the trip had been quite enjoyable, too, as he recollected on it. After the nap that she and Neal had taken, the two of them had indeed headed into the shower for some more alone time... and you always knew that it was an enjoyable shower when you came out feeling dirtier than when you went in. After that, they did some more on the bed, took another nap, and then did some more.... hey, it was a long flight, and they both had a lot of stamina.

"These are for you," Batman stated, handing over the two notes, one going to Rose, and the other to Neal.

Neal's message was simple, and surprisingly caring for Deathstroke. It read: "Take care of my daughter. Make sure she's happy."

Rose just narrowed her eye. "Oh joy, what did he want to tell me now?" she muttered, lifting the note to her gaze. She instantly froze after reading it. This was... what? "I... I don't believe it. Joey... he knew where Joey is. My brother!"

Neal stood right next to Sarah, watching as Deathstroke was going to be locked up and hopefully for good this time. He didn't care what anyone else thought, but Neal had faced one of his biggest fears and helped to bring him down. In his opinion, he was now a full fledged hero. The Titans had taught him the importance of working together and being a family, but he was never certain if he was ready yet. Neal had zero doubts now, he had earned his place as a Hero among so many others.

Neal glanced up curiously as Batman approached them, saying that they had something from Deathstroke. What could he possibly want to give them? Neal took his note and opened it, allowing some time to read the message and let it absorb in. He was surprised by what it said. there was no hidden taunt, no insult, it was just a plea and a wish for Neal to make sure that Rose was happy. His eyes glanced up once to view Deathstroke as he was being taken away. He couldn't help but feel pity.

Despite Neal's somber thoughts, they were quickly pulled away at what Rose said next. "Wait what?" Neal said before looking over and reading her note. He crumpled up his own and stuck it in his pocket. Neal would make sure to follow it, but not because Deathstroke asked him to. Neal just wanted Rose to be happy. "He knows where your brother is? Where is he?" Neal asked as he looked over towards Rose. He could only imagine how much value this kind of information was to her.

"Well, it... at least his last known location," Rose uttered, just staring at the note, reading it further. "This... This whole time we were chasing him... he wasn't just working contracts, he was also tracking down information on where Joseph ended up after we were separated. I don't believe this..." Holding a hand up to her head, she kept reading. "He was taken by some group in Prague, an international metahuman research center, to... my god. They were experimenting on him. Fuck, who knows what they've put him through? It's been... god, it's been years. And apparently whenever someone gets too close to them, they pack up and move, sometimes to different countries. But, Deathstroke, he... he was tracking them down. This note.... it's got a bunch of leads on it, where they might be... where Joey might be. Joey..."

Neal just listened as he could hear the concern and the worry in Rose's voice. She had only just learned that her father had been close to getting her brother back, but Neal and Rose had stopped him before he had been able to. That was the problem, and now it was going to be up to them to get him back. Neal quickly took a step forward and looked right at Rose. "It seems like you and I have a new destination and quest to start on again," he said with a small smile. "If it was my sister you'd do the same for me, so let's head out and go find your brother and bring him home"

"Right... yeah, we have to get going. Now," Rose said, grabbing his hand and running back into he Javelin. "Their last known location was in Russia, where we just were, but chances are they've went and moved again. They like to do that, a lot, apparently. According to the note, they had a few likely next destinations. We'll start with Singapore, but we're going to need faster transportation than this hunk of junk. Barely faster than a regular jet for crying out loud."

Running up to he cockpit, she started looking around at all the buttons for the one that would contact them to the Justice League headquarters. Pressing the comm, she practically yelled into it. "Hey! Hey is this the Watchtower thing? I need some immediate transportation to-"

Batman's hand suddenly came in out of nowhere and pulled her hand away from the button. "Don't. Touch. Anything," he ordered in a hard tone.

"Hey, get your hands of me," Rose responded, ripping her arm away from his grasp. "I need to get to Singapore, right now!"

"And you will," Batman said. "Just don't touch anything in the cockpit."

Rose glared at him. "Oh, and why not? I'm perfectly capable, thanks."

"Because that button isn't the communicator to the Watchtower," he explained. "It extends the fuel hose and dumps whatever's in the tank. And the one next to it, which you almost hit instead, fires the on board weapon system."

Rose slowly glanced down at the buttons. "Oh..."

"Batman to Watchtower," he said, pressing one of the buttons higher up on the console. "J'onn, can you hear me? I need an immediate teleport for two to Singapore, for Ravager and Fade. They have some business to take care of."

As both Rose and Neal's bodies began to flicker with blue light, Rose let out a small sigh. "Thanks," she muttered, as Batman and the javelin suddenly disappeared, replaced by a busy side street in the middle of Singapore. "Now, let's find Joey."

Neal watched as Rose jumped up and tried to operate the javelin on her own. She had clearly never flown one before, and Neal was about to speak up about what she was doing. Batman cut him off though, quickly just moving in and prying her away from the buttons before she accidentally shot something that she was going to regret. Neal moved over closer to her before Batman moved in to communicated with J'onn.

It was a shame, Neal was hoping to ask how Nightwing had been doing. He would have been living a normal life for almost half a year now, and Neal wanted to know how he was doing. Right now Rose needed him more though, and so he'd go with her. "Thanks for everything Batman, we'll see you again soon," he said honestly before they phased out.

As they appeared on the streets of Singapore, Neal took the liberty of having their outfits change to regular civilian clothes instead of their uniforms like they had been in. When transporting someone like Deathstroke to prison, you had to make sure you were in uniform in case someone tried to get pictures after all. Neal glanced around the busy streets of Singapore. Admiring the beauty of the whole city as he looked upon it. They were here for other business though.

"Do you know where exactly they would be in Singapore? This isn't exactly a small town Rose"

"Well, it's supposedly a high tech research facility," Rose said, looking around. "Even if they're constantly on the move, they need to be somewhere with access to a lot of equipment, and not the normal kind you'd find in, like, a factory. They'd need our kind of equipment... the kind you'd use to deal with meta-level humans. We should assume that they're a very wealthy operation, so probably... one of these countless tall buildings all around us." She sighed, shaking her head. They needed a different approach. "Alright... let's find the slummier parts of the city, the underground... see if we can find any local crime lords who might have some information. I mean, it isn't exactly legal what this group is doing, kidnapping 'special' people and experimenting on them... these bastards are going to pay."

"Yeah......that might be harder than we thought it was going to be," Neal muttered as he looked around at all of the tall buildings that were surrounding them. Any of them could be used to store equipment and experiment on people with! They were going to have to be smart about this if they were going to save Joey. "Alright, finding a crime lord should be easy enough. If we could find Deathstroke I'm sure we can find someone here," Neal admitted as they began to walk. "Out of curiosity you do speak..........whatever it is that they speak here right?" he asked her.

Man, Neal really needed to take a few weeks and learn some languages.

"Well, English is one of the four official recognized languages in Singapore," Rose explained. "So... I speak at least a fourth of it. but, I do know a little Mandarin, too... but it's not nearly as good as my Russian. You know, with hat super head of yours, you could really listen to some language tapes or something, with the amount of global travel we're doing. Seriously, I should buy you every single available language from Rosetta Stone, then we wouldn't have to worry about this."

Turning a corner leading into one of the shadier parts of the city, Rose looked around casually, trying not to appear suspicious. They were definitely getting closer tot he kinds of places that gangs and other criminals would be hanging out at. Some underground nightclubs, restaurants clearly run by the Triads, she could tell just by looking at the people working at the place, the way they moved, the way they acted. They needed to start doing some serious investigating around here.

"I hope you're ready for a long night," she said, cracking her knuckles, "because we might have to have to talk to a lot of scum tonight."

"Alright alright, I'm done taking the jokes about this. On my life I swear that after this mission I won't rest until I learn every main spoken language that's out there," Neal said as he looked towards Rose. Neal had spent basically all of his crime fighting days in New York, and never really needed to bother to learn another language. With all the traveling that he had done though, he was starting to see the value that it would have on future missions.

As they moved into the darker part of the city, Neal couldn't help but smile as he saw the determination that was in Rose's face and body. She really meant business when it came to saving her brother. Neal almost felt sorry for whoever they ran into........almost sorry. "Well, you do know how good I am with interrogation," he pointed out with a smile.

"Let's get to work"

"Where are they?!" Rose shouted, winding up and delivering a thunderous punch to the man's face.

They were currently dealing with a local Triad flunky. Normally small fry kind of stuff, but after everywhere else they've been that night, they had come to learn that he was also working on the side for the same group that had Joey. Problem was, he wasn't talking, even tied up to a chair and bloodied. Then again, he was a Triad, probably used to this kind of thing. They were hardly doing very heroic things here with this guy, but... this was her brother they were talking about, and he was nothing more than criminal filth.

"Go to hell," the man said, in a thick Chinese accent. he then spit a glob of spit and blood right in her face. "Crazy bitch."

"You son of a-!" Rose shot back, going back at him with another blow, then wrapping her hands around his throat. Neal might have to step in here.

Neal stood by and watched as Rose went about her interrogation. He knew that he could step in and make the guy feel some serious pain, but he really didn't want to use his power like that unless he had to. They had been trying to find someone that would talk for quite some time, it wasn't until this guy that they had any sort of a lead on where Joey might be. He wasn't talking though, which meant that Rose was only getting more annoyed by the seconds.

"Okay okay, let's not break his neck," Neal said as he grabbed Rose's hand in order to pull it away from the man's throat. "You've had your turn, would you like me to turn up the heat for him?" he asked with a smile as he was certain that she'd understand what he meant.

Rose slowly calmed herself as Neal grabbed her hand. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she let out a cool breath and released her breath, stepping back. She'd almost just lost control there again, almost went and snapped the damn guy's neck... thank Neal for keeping her grounded. "Right... okay, yeah, do that," she said, holding a hand to her head and shaking it. She knew that if anyone could get answers out of this guy, it was Neal. The things he could do with his power... it was enough to make any professional interrogator blush.

About ten minutes later, the man was begging for mercy. "Alright! Alright! I tell you! I tell you!" Letting out a few panicked breaths, he recomposed himself and stared back up at Neal, though considering he was now deathly afraid of him, he instead turned his gaze right over to Rose again. "They not here, anymore. They pack up again- leave. Head to Shanghai, Jiading District. I give you address, that's where they are now. Only for the next week, then they move again. Please, just please let me go!"

Neal never enjoyed what he was able to do with his power, but it was truly effective at getting information. This guy knew things and Rose was going to kill him before she was able to make him talk. Neal would make him feel far worse without even touching the man. "Sorry about this in advance, but we did try and reason with you," Neal said before his eyes gained a significantly darker look towards them.

Within ten minutes, Neal finally backed away and crossed his arms in front of his body. The man began speaking like if he didn't Neal was going to push him close to the edge of insanity again. He wasn't that far from the truth either. After he said all the information Neal glanced over at Rose. "After what I just did to him I'm pretty sure that he's telling the truth," Neal said with a simple smile. "We should move as fast as we can, we don't have that many days left to get there and to save your brother"

"Yeah," Rose said, nodding slowly. They had to get moving, though. It wasn't long until the group would go and relocate again, and then they might never get back on the trail. "Let's head to the airport, get a plane ticket. Flight time from here to Shanghai is less than five hours, so we should have plenty of time, but the sooner the better." Turning to leave the small back room of the nightclub they were in, she suddenly stopped, turned back again to the tied up man, and gave him another hard punch, this one a knockout that knocked him right over on the chair to the floor. "Alright, now we can go."

Neal gave a nod as they both agreed that they needed to move as soon as possible. The group could be on the move at any time, especially if they had someone who watched out for this kind of thing. Neal had to hope that they weren't being that careful though. He watched as Rose quickly moved and took out the guy out, sending him down to the ground with one vicious punch. "You always did have an amazing right hook," Neal said with a smile as he turned and left the area.

They'd be on their way to the airport, and hopefully Shanghai, in no time.

Rose double checked the address on the note that the man they'd interrogated had given them. Then, she glanced up at the building in front of them. "This... is the right place," she muttered, though she wasn't quite sure how much she believed that. What they were standing in front of wasn't any big tall wealthy building that looked like it was a place doing metahuman research experiments... in fact, it didn't look like much of a place at all. It was a run down warehouse, at best.

"He lied to us... he had to have lied to us," she said, forming a fist. "Or they moved early. It's only been ten hours since we left. This... it can't be right." There didn't look to be any activity coming from inside, either. As far as thy could tell, it was completely empty.

Neal just stared in disbelief as Rose confirmed that this was the right place. How was that possible though? There was no way that this was the kind of building that this group would use. It was just a run down building, nothing that any decent company would even use for storage. Something was definitely wrong, and Neal couldn't place his finger on it.

"There's no way that he would lie to us after what I did to him. I know that he grew up in a rough neighborhood, but I made him feel pain that's normally impossible to live through," Neal insisted as he looked towards the building. Either way, something was definitely off. "What do you think, check it out anyway? I mean we are here after all, maybe there's more here than we can see"

"Yeah... we have to check it out," Rose said, with a firm nod. "It's the best lead we have to go on right now, even if it looks like it's a dead end. Who knows... maybe we'll find something inside." Though, she really doubted they would. It was a gut feeling she had... somehow, she didn't think they were going to find anything. Still, they had to go in and look around at least. She had never been very good at detective work, but still... worth a shot.

And so, they ducked inside the old, run down building to see if they could find anything that they could use to locate Joey. Unfortunately, the inside was just a empty as she had feared, nothing more than an open space with a dirt floor and a few objects covered by blankets. No super secret research facility causing harm on innocent people... definitely not what they were looking for.

At first, she thought their victim really had been lying, had somehow resisted Neal's torture and given them a completely fabrication... that is, until she started investigating the objects beneath the blankets. They were machines... weird, strange machines that she didn't recognize the use of, with wires, and tubes, and straps, and needles, and all sorts of things. Definitely not something she would have expected to find in a run down building like this.

"They were here..." Rose muttered, pulling the blanket off the machine fully. "Were... but not anymore. They must have moved early..." She took a closer look at the machine and shuddered. "It looks like some kind of torture device... god, Joey, what are they doing to you?"

Neal moved with Rose, heading into the building in front of them in the hopes of finding anything that might aid their search. There was no way that guy had resisted Neal's torture. Sure, Neal didn't go quite as hard on him as he had that one prisoner, but he was just a normal guy! There was no way that he should be able to resist the torture that Neal put him through. This address had to have some value to it.

As they moved through, Neal tried to find anything that might be of use. It really did just look like an abandoned building, but how could that be right? It wasn't until Rose lifted up a blanket that they found the evidence that they needed. "That's not the kind of machine that honest people use" Neal said as he investigated the machine. He had no idea what its purpose was, but there was nothing good that could come out of it.

Neal heard what Rose had said about Joey, but didn't comment on it. The more she thought about what might be happening to him, the more worried that Rose would be. She needed to just focus on finding him. "Well, keep looking around. There might be some hint as to where they went next, if not..........we'll need to come up with a new plan" he admitted as he began to search again.

And that's exactly what they had to do, come up with a new plan. Aside from the few machines that the group left behind, they had covered their tracks pretty well. There wasn't a single indication of where they might have gone from there, despite their best efforts for searching. It was a true dead end. The only things they had to go on now were the other few leads that were on the note her father had given her. If not Singapore, if not Shanghai, then the next stop was Tokyo. And if they didn't find anything there, then it was off to Spain. And so on. She wasn't about to give up hope, not yet. Her brother was out there, somewhere, and they were going to find him.

Four Months Later...

"I. Am so. Tired. Of this!" Rose shouted, throwing a punch in between each couple words of her sentence.

Their latest interrogation victim wasn't doing so hot. Her methods had gotten more and more brutal as the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months. Constantly on a trail, and yet losing it just as fast, that was the story of their efforts so far. Just when they thought they were getting close to this mystery group that had Joey, the disappeared off the grid again. And it was really starting to get old. And tiring.

Rose always started things off, when it came to grilling someone for information. She knew that Neal didn't like to use his power in that way, he only did it when he had to. Sometimes, Rose's methods were enough to make the guy talk. But other times... Neal had to help out. It looked like this was going to be one of those times. Seeing that she wasn't going to get anything out of him, she let out a frustrated breath and took a few steps back, plopping herself down in a seat.

"I'm just... so tired of it..." she mumbled, holding her head in her hands. Every moment longer that they took was another moment that Joey suffered. Why couldn't they just find him already? What kind of sister was she, unable to help her brother? A failure... that's all she was so far, when it came to this job.

Neal nearly flinched with every single punch that Rose directed into the guy's chest and face. He held a frown the entire time, he just hated to see Rose like this. It was evident that their journey was really beginning to take a toll on her. It was like she was losing her sanity, and it was leaving at a very heavy price. He knew that she was just tired and frustrated, but he just hated to see her in this state. She just wanted her brother back, and Neal just wanted to be able to help her.

As she moved to take a seat, Neal moved past her and heard her muttering to herself. He placed his hand on her shoulder for a moment and squeezed it. He just wanted her to remember that he was there for her, even if he hated using his power like this he would do it a thousand more times if it would help her to get happy and find her brother. Throughout the entire time Neal had yet to whine, complain, or make a suggestion that they give up. He was there for her, and he just hoped that she remembered that.

The moment that Neal let go of Rose's shoulder, his gaze turned to their new suspect. Neal wasn't going to waste time warming up. He was going to scare this guy to hell. Neal quickly grabbed and threw him down, causing his face to smash into the floor. "Tell us what you know now! We aren't going to bullshit with you anymore!" Neal shouted in an insanely loud and demonic voice. As the man's face made contact with the ground, little hands would start bursting through, clawing and grabbing at the man. "Tell me everything you know or I'll see to it that my friends send you right to hell and bury you alive down there"

It only took two minutes this time. Two minutes and the guy that Neal was dealing with turned into a frightened, blubbering mess. He pleaded to make it stop, said he'd tell them anything they wanted to know, he just wanted the horrors to stop. Rose really had to hand it to him... Neal knew how to get information from someone who didn't want to give it. Just one of the many reasons she was glad to have him along with her.

And so, just like that, they had another lead. Another address. Hopefully, not another dead end. Though, with what their luck had been like so far, Rose wasn't about to get her hopes up. Still, every fiber of her being wanted this to be the last time they would have to investigate a lead. She wanted to find her brother, and she wanted to find him now. Nothing was going to stand in her way, not now.

Two Days Later...

"Of all the places..." Rose uttered, her fist shaking violently. "Of all the... after everthing we've been through... everywhere we've had to go... all this time... and it takes us back to here? HERE?!"

As they'd learned from their last victim, they had been looking in all the wrong places. They had been following dummy leads to abandoned facilities that hadn't been used in years. No one was holding any international metahuman research, while pacing up and moving every couple of weeks. There was no secret mystery group in charge. No, the one in charge was no secret, no mystery, it was a well known public figure, who had gone to great lengths to make sure that any investigation involving his work would lead far, far away from him.

But now anymore. Now, they'd finally found the source. And Rose was pissed, mostly because they'd been standing less than five miles from it when they first got the note. They were back in the States, back in Metropolis.

And they were standing right outside of Lexcorp.

Neal just stared with intent as the man took so little time to crack that Neal had to just plain wonder if he was weak. No, that hadn't been the case. Neal had been extra motivated this time around though, he wanted to get the information for Rose so that it could start to cheer her up. It brought Neal no personal joy to break people, but he had learned that it was a necessary evil sometimes. Heroes didn't kill, but what they allowed themselves to do was a personal decision. To help others, Neal was willing to make himself a torturer.

---

Neal just stared up at the building, already having thought about the implications of this information before they had even arrived. "Ya know Rose, maybe we should call for some backup. I mean this is where Lex Luthor is. Believe me I have dealt with this guy and he is no pushover" Neal muttered as he glanced back up at the building.

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to sound negative but I can't help but worry that something bad is going to happen here if we don't take the right steps"

"No, I'm not waiting around for anyone else to show up," Rose said, starting to walk straight for the Lexcorp entrance. Nothing was going to stop her. "I don't care who Lex Luthor thinks he is, some kind of mad scientist playing god or a fucking delusional sadist who enjoys torturing innocent people, it doesn't matter. He's the one behind all of this, and we're here right now. We. us. The ones who are going to stop this, right now. Besides, he's my brother. I'm getting him out, and I'm not going to let him suffer any longer."

There was no way that these secret experiments were being done anywhere close to he public eye. Most likely in secret laboratories or something, far below the building, sub basement levels. That's where they'd search first. Granted, they likely weren't just going to be able to have perfect access from the main elevator, no. The entrance to secret sub levels would likely be, well, secret. Probably connected to Luthor's main office. They could head there, check around. They might even be able to get through by saying they had a meeting with the guy or something... And once they got there, they could make him talk, make him show them where Joey was being held.

In the end, Lex Luthor was just a normal guy. In spite of all his genius, if he was caught by surprise with his pants down, unprepared, there was nothing he'd be able to to against her, let alone both her and Neal at the same time. They could get him to squeal just like so many others. Then, they find Joey, and free him from his torment. And then, they'd throw Luthor's ass in jail for the laundry list of charges he'd have racked up on an operation like this. But not before she got done with him personally...

Lex Luthor was going to pay.