DC Genesis

Once they got to the shore, Neal also took the time to cough up a bit of water. After that he was just breathing deeply, trying to get back his energy that he had lost in the fight and the explosion. He wasn't severely injured at all, but it wasn't exactly like he was feeling at the top of his game either. While he took the time to recover he listened to Rose argue with the Bat family, who was not even caring about the fact that they had just been saved because of them.

"Rose we can't pretend like things went according to plan," Neal finally chimed in before looking to Batman. "Without these guys you and I would be lying on the pavement with several bullet holes all over our bodies, Batman saved our lives," Neal said before slowly pushing himself to his feet.

"Sorry that we interfered, one of our friends as in those containers. We just felt like we had to help her before it was too late."

"You wanted to help you friend, fine," Batman said, folding his arms firmly across his chest. "But throwing your own lives away in the process isn't how you do it. You were not equipped to handle this situation. We are." He took another step forward, eyes narrowing in a glare that could petrify a gorgon. "And we told you to stand down while we took care of it, but instead you went ahead anyway. You were reckless, dangerous, and stupid. You almost got innocent people, the people you were trying to save, killed."

Rose didn't say anything at first, looking away with a frown. She was still cold, freezing in fact, but she didn't so much as shiver anymore.

"But..." Batman continued, glancing back and forth between them. "You were also resourceful, in spite of your incompetence. And both very gifted. So... good work."

"What?" Rose turned back and lifted an eyebrow at the Dark Knight. "Great... now they're patronizing me."

Neal just didn't say anything. He had seen pictures of Batman and heard about him on the news, but seeing the guy seemed to be something else entirely. It was like he was a specter, someone that was just beyond normal humans. Neal couldn't tell what it was, but there was something about the guy that was just different. It didn't come down to just the gadgets in the end, there was something else about this man that set him apart from all of the others.

Neal only gained a tiny smile as Batman mentioned that they had done well, course it didn't exactly counter all of the negative stuff that he had said about them. Suddenly, Neal remembered something. "Oh right," he said before reaching in to his pocket and pulling out Batgirl's goggles. "Would you mind giving these back to Batgirl? I kinda swiped them off of her when I got the chance."

"I'll take them myself," came a voice from right next to him. Batgirl suddenly appeared, approaching from the side and swiping the goggles out of his grasp. She gave the pair a short look before turning to Batman. "The girls are all safe. The cops are here now, and the paramedics. They're being treated... everyone will be fine."

"Good," Batman said, with a small nod. "We should go, then." Glancing back at the other two, he added, "And you should get out of here."

"Right... whatever," Rose said, rolling her eyes.

After a long pause, Nightwing suddenly lifted his eyebrows and took a step towards Rose. "Wait a minute... aren't you the girl I saw hot wiring a car last week?"

"Yeah, and aren't you the one who was standing there admiring my ass?" Rose retorted, looking back over her shoulder at him.

Batgirl immediately snapped her gaze over to them. "Excuse me?"

"Whu- uh... no, that's not... it's not what it.... there's no correct answer here, is there?" Nightwing cleared his throat, shifting his gaze back and forth between Rose and Batigrl. Eventually, he settled on Rose and added, "You should, uh... probably put your shirt back on."

Neal glanced over as he saw that Batgirl came over and took her own goggles back, she didn't look very happy upon seeing Rose or Neal. She was probably mad at the fight, and also mad at the fact that she lost it to them. Granted it wasn't a fight to the finish, but she had been outsmarted by two kids that were younger than her. "Well that's good, at least everyone's okay," Neal remarked.

He just stood by as Rose and Nightwing seemed to have a fight. Apparently Nightwing recognized that Rose had been the one that was trying to steal a car on her fight night in Gotham. Neal could relate to that, he nearly got robbed too.

"Rose we should go," Neal said as he glanced over at her. "We should make sure that Selina and Holly meet back up with each other," he insisted. "After all, Holly has no idea what's been going on since we left her at my car."

"Uh... yeah,"Rose muttered, giving the Bat family one last look before pulling her shirt on. "We'll leave you guys to... work things out. Come on, Neal."

"We'll talk back at the cave," Batgirl said, giving Nightwing a death stare.

Meanwhile, back at the congregation of police and paramedics, Holly had already found Selina at one of the ambulances. Both girls had reunited and were in near tears as they held each other, with one of those heavy fire safe blankets wrapped around them.

"We should probably keep our distance," Rose said, looking on from the shadows. "Your dad might be one of those cops down there, and I don't think we really want to explain to him what we're doing here. Let's just head back to the car and get to the club already. I really need to unwind."

"Right, let's go," Neal said as he turned and began to leave the scene with Rose. He watched as he saw that Selina and Holly had been reunited at the ambulances. It was probably a great deal of relief to each other that they saw one another. After all, Holly probably thought that she was never going to see Selina again. Those two were like sisters.

"Club, yeah that sounds good," Neal said absently before turning and beginning to head over to his car. Thankfully it was still in the same spot that he had left it in. "Hey," he said as he glanced over at Rose. "Do you think that we'll ever see Holly and Selina again?"

"I don't know," Rose muttered, shoving her hands into her pockets. When they got to the car, she opened the door to the passenger side. "I mean, they seemed like they were gonna get their lives back in order, but if they stay in Gotham then I imagine we might run into them again eventually... maybe not in another strip club, but who knows? Maybe somewhere." Taking a moment to put her seat belt on, she glanced down at herself and groaned. "Maybe turn the heat up, by the way. I'm fucking freezing... and my clothes seriously need to drive before I get a lap dance."

"Yeah, I hope that we see them again too. They were both cool," Neal said as he began to start the heat up. He was also feeling cold, though it wasn't quite as bad as how Rose was feeling he bet. She looked soaked. "give me just a minute," he said before turning the heat up to max and waited for it to get warm. "That should do it," he said before starting to drive the car off away from the crime scene.

"Talk about your crazy night huh?"

"Yeah, crazy is one way of putting it," Rose said, with a quiet laugh. "I'll be glad when it's over, though. Well... maybe not when I'm at the club, but yeah. It's been crazy."

---

"So, those two were... interesting," Nightwing said, tapping his fingers against his arms.

"Indeed," Batman replied. "Those two have some special talents... but they're inexperienced, untrained. If they try something like that again, they'll get someone killed. But with guidance..."

"Oh come on," Batgirl said, giving him a hard look. "You're saying you want to train them, too? They're kids."

"So were you two, when you started," he replied. "But no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we should watch them... closely."

Next Monday...

"So what do you think about this one?" Neal asked as he looked at another watch. Neal and Rose were at the mall, having taken the weekend to recover from the events that took place at the pier last Friday. It had been crazy for all of them, considering they met the Bat Family personally and nearly got killed about six times. It had been one crazy night. They hadn't seen Selina or Holly since than, but Neal kept hoping that they would come around.

They were at the mall now, as Neal wanted to come and buy a few last gifts for the family. He had offered to drive Rose there, in case she wanted to window shop and just see if anything looked good."I think that I'll go with this one," Neal said as he picked out the second one that he tried on. "I think that it fit the best, looks pretty nice too," he said before taking the watch and looking over at Rose. "What about you? Seeing anything that you like yet?"

"Uh, I guess that looks okay," Rose said, with a small shrug. She didn't really know anything about watches... they really all looked the same to her. As she stood there waiting for him to finish his shopping, she looked around aimlessly, with very little interest or enthusiasm. "I don't know, I don't really see anything I need... maybe a phone. That might be useful, I guess." A few moments later, her eyes wandered around to all the Christmas decorations. "You know... I've never had a Christmas before. Don't really even know what the hell it's supposed to be about, except people buying each other presents. Just seems like an excuse to spend money."

"Well, that's the commercial part of it," Neal admitted as he went to the cashier and placed the watch down along with a few other items. "But Christmas is really just a time to be together with your family and loved ones. A time where you can just feel closer to each other, think about the more important things in life, and show that love through gifts," Neal said before handing the money over to the cashier before taking his bags.

"You'll be spending it with my family and we have a lot of Christmas traditions. I bet you'll enjoy it," Neal said as they walked out of the small store and in to the larger mall.

"Yeah, well I guess we'll see," Rose replied, with a small yawn. They had been out late again last night, and as shocking as it was, she was actually starting to get exhausted from it. Maybe she should take a night or two off and just sleep. "Isn't it supposed to be some religious thing, too? I wouldn't know, really, my mother was Buddhist, and my dad... I don't even know. As for me, let's just say I have reason to believe there's no God. Or if there is one, he has one fucked up sense of humor."

"Well I guess that depends on the individual family, I know a few people from my school that celebrate Christmas but don't bother with the religious aspect of it," Neal remarked as they kept walking. "I mean, my family leans towards the religious sides, but don't worry, we all agreed that we would kinda leave those parts out this year," Neal said as they continued to go through the store. "It'll just be about being with the family this year."

As they continued to walk, Rose might notice that there was quite a crowd gathering in the center of the store. They all seemed to be looking at some kind of a display, but it was impossible to see what it was through the crowd.

As they reached the choked up part of the store, Rose lifted an eyebrow and stood on her tip toes, tying to see over the tops of people's heads to find out what was going on. It was futile, though, as she couldn't get a clear view of anything, and there was little room to actually get around to see, either. "Okay, what the hell is going on here?" she muttered. "Kind of annoying... I'm not really in a mood to wait around for these idiots to clear out." As she made her comment, a few people nearby gave her odd looks, obviously not quite pleased with being called idiots.

"I don't know, seems to be a lot of people here," Neal remarked as he tried to look around to see what was going on or what the people were looking at. "It's an electronics store, but I don't see what the big deal would be," Neal remarked as he also tried to push himself up to see over the people.

An older gentleman turned and looked towards the two kids that were trying to see what was going on. "There's a man on television, claims that he's going to do everything the batman has failed at," he said in a serious tone. "Claims that he's going to truly cleanse Gotham of crime before we become impossible to save," he said before turning his eyes back to the television and looking to see what else was being said.

Before Neal or Rose could say anything though, there was a loud shrieking as a large amount of static seemed to fill the air. Suddenly, several of the televisions overhead, normally used to show deals in the mall or to play the NEWS in case of emergency, all seemed to shut off at once. About five seconds later, the same image appeared on every single TV.

"Oh now that's much better," the man said as he appeared on the television. He was a tall man, with scruff on the lower part of his face. There wasn't much else to say about him, considering that the rest of his face seemed to be covered up by some sort of a mask. He slowly backed away from the camera, showing that he had on a very advanced looking suit as well. "For those of you just joining us, allow me to repeat my earlier message. I have seen the crimes that Gotham has committed, and they displease me greatly. Your police were supposed to protect you, and this Batman has failed to do anything. It is obvious that the right steps have yet to be taken....that's where I come in!", he said as he moved away from the camera.

The room that he was in was completely black, not showing any sign of where he might be playing this message from. "I will take it upon myself to save this city. The guilty need to be struck down, just as God intended it to be. I will be Gotham's savior in this time of need! I will be the vigilante that we needed the Batman to be," he said before slowly lifting his arm and pointing it at the screen. Attached to it was some kind of a gun, though the design of it was very strange.

"Gotham's Underworld, to you I propose the challenge....just TRY to stay alive from me. I can guarantee that you'll never see me coming," he said as his grin grew large. "You will all come to know the name Deadshot," he said before firing a single bullet that destroyed whatever camera he was transmitting on. The camera broke and turned to static before all of the televisions quickly reverted back to what was playing before.

The mall was filled with voices, all of them speaking about this new masked vigilante in Gotham.

Rose watched the whole thing. She heard the whole thing. She experienced the whole thing...yet she still wasn't quite sure what she had seen. She couldn't count how many times she had rolled her eyes and had to fight back a snicker under her breath over the doofus on the television claiming to be Gotham's reckoning, or whatever the hell he was going on about. When it was finally over, she looked over to Neal and said, "Geez, can you believe that clown?"

"I'm not really sure what to make of it honestly," Neal said as he was still looking up at the screen. "I know that there are some characters in Gotham, but I can safely say that this guy isn't one of the men that I've heard about from my dad," Neal said before turning and looking over to Rose. It was an interesting situation, and he couldn't help but wonder what kind of effects this guy's quest was going to have. For all they knew, they would find him in a gutter the next day.

"I wonder what he's going to do."

"Probably something stupid," Rose said, with a flippant wave of the hand. She had a lot better things to be thinking about right now than some moron on the television claiming to shoot up all the criminals in the city. Besides, even if he somehow did manage it, didn't really seem like a bad thing to her. Shoving her hands into her pockets, she started wandering slowly around the store, looking for the cell phones. "So, what's on the agenda for the rest of the day, anyway?"

Neal just began to follow Rose, not really thinking of anything else that he could add to the conversation. He supposed that was just all they could do right now. Hopefully this guy would just be some crazy that would be forgotten within a week. That's what they could hope for at least. As he glanced over at Rose, Neal gave a shrug in response to her question. He couldn't think of a good answer at least.

"I don't really have anything planned. I have all my gifts I think, so I'm free to do whatever for the rest of the day. Got anything specific you'd like to do?"

"Not anything really specific, no," she replied, with a small shrug. She had no real idea how these phone plans worked, but she didn't really seem to care much. She just picked the one that looked the coolest and went from there. She'd figure it out eventually... "Maybe nothing involving staying out too late, though. I could use an actual good night's sleep for once." She could always just sleep until noon if she wanted to, but her day always started early. Hell, by six in the morning she had already biked twelve miles, usually, on her exercise bike. "But yeah, whatever you want is fine."

"Suppose that sounds fair," Neal admitted as they continued to walk through the store. He wasn't quite sure yet what he wanted to do either, and it sounded like they were both done here for the time being. Neal still had a strange feeling about that guy on the monitor though, what was one guy going to do by taking on Gotham's underworld other than getting himself killed? Neal just tried to push the thought aside for now, Rose wasn't concerned about it after all.

"Well it sounds like we're both done here. How about we got get a burger or some food and head back home?" Neal suggested.

"Uh huh, just a minute," Rose said, taking one last look at the phones. She finally settled on one and brought it over to the counter to pay for it, along with a specialized black casing with a skull on it that she could attach later. Just the kind of phone for her. "You will help me, like, activate this thing later, right? I've never used a cell phone before, so... yeah. I'm sure I could figure it out on myself, but I'm not really interested suffering through technological crap."

Neal glacned up at Rose as she mentioned that she had never used a cell phone before. He could hardly believe it. He figured that she had before and just didn't have one now, but apparently she had honestly never had one before. It was amazing how new things about Rose kept showing up in just day to day life. "Yeah sure thing, it won't be that hard to do," Neal said as he waited for Rose to gather everything up. "We'll get you set up with a number and a few contacts, after that I'll show ya how to use it."