This was not the greatest day of Dick Grayson’s life.

After working a double-shift the previous day, he went right to sleep, only to be awoken by a call from Oracle, informing him of an apparent attempt on Roland Desmond’s life by a man called Prometheus. Right after that, the costumed vigilante called the Huntress appeared in his apartment. And as luck would have it, Dick’s landlady and girlfriend just happened to choose that moment to step in the door. Not only did she find her boyfriend talking with a vigilante whose costume left little to the imagination, but Dick was wearing nothing besides a pair of boxer shorts.

“What’s goin’ on?” asked Bridget Clancy.

“Oh crap…” muttered Dick, covering his face with his hand.

The Huntress rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time for this.”

“An’ just who are you?” asked Clancy, turning her gaze to the Huntress.

“The Huntress,” she said. She looked to Dick. “We have to go. Now. That ship will be arriving at the docks at 10.”

“In the morning? Why would they risk it?” asked Dick.

“I’m not sure, but whoever’s behind this obviously isn’t worried about repercussions.”

“Or maybe it’s a trap,” said Dick.

“What’s a trap?” asked Clancy.

“Question is, for who?” asked Huntress. “The police? Desmond? Us?”

“Only one way to find out, I guess,” said Dick.

“What are you talkin’ about?” asked Clancy.

“It’s quarter after nine, if we leave now we can make it there in half an hour—just in time to get a lay of the land,” said Huntress. “That is, if you’re willing to work together on this.”

“Do I have a choice?” asked Dick. He opened his closet and reached up, feeling in the corner for a hidden switch. Once he applied a certain amount of pressure, the closet’s wall slid to the side and behind it was his Nightwing costume.

“WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON HERE?” Clancy shouted now, raising her voice so she could get the attention of both Dick and the Huntress. Dick sighed and walked over to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Clancy… listen, I’m sorry but I don’t have time to talk about this right now,” he said. “But I promise, once this is all over, I will sit down with you and I will explain everything.”

Clancy’s eyes were now fixated on the costume. She had certainly seen images of Nightwing in the papers and on the television, she had heard the rumors about him. She had even been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of him leaping across rooftops. But she never could have imagined who Blüdhaven’s hero was beneath the mask.

“This… this can’t be happening…”

“Clancy please, just trust me and—“

Clancy pulled away from his grasp. She took one last look at Huntress then turned her gaze back to Dick, before she ran out the door, tears beginning to stream down her face. Dick sighed and clenched his fist, punching the wall in anger.

The Huntress folded her arms across her chest. “At least that’s over with. Now get dressed, we’ve got—“

Dick crossed the distance between him and the Huntress in record time. He got right into her face and pointed a finger at her. “Now you listen to me,” he said. “After this, you’re through. You will get the hell out of Blüdhaven. I don’t want to see you in my town ever again, do you understand?”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Grayson.” The Huntress pulled his finger away from her face and slammed her palm against his chest, forcing him back a few steps. “I don’t work for you. I’m here because I have a job to do. That speech never worked when the Batman gave it to me and you’re definitely no Batman. Don’t you think for a second that just because we used to sleep together means you have any more authority or control over me than he did. The Huntress goes where she pleases, when she pleases. You got it?”

Dick and the Huntress locked eyes for a few moments, both of them burning with anger towards the other. It was she who spoke first. “Get dressed. We’re running out of time.”

	A Knight in Blüdhaven... "CITY AT WAR" Part Two
Nightwing #14 - April, Year Five	by Dino Pollard

Special Agent Cisco Blane of the FBI pulled his car up to the warehouse. He climbed out and drew his gun, unsure of what to expect. In a town like Blüdhaven, you had to be ready to pull out all the stops. And he was prepared to do just that.

He had gotten a call this morning, saying that someone wanted to meet him. When he asked what it was about, all the voice on the other end said was “Prometheus.” It was a word Blane knew all too well, and he knew he had to figure out what was going on.

Blane slowly opened the door and walked inside. The place was stacked up with crates, although Blane wasn’t sure if the warehouse was even being used anymore. Another part of him shuddered to think what he might find inside those crates.

The lights shut off suddenly. There were no windows so the room was pitch black. Blane kept his composure and put his back against some crates. He tried to let his eyes acclimate to the darkness as much as possible, but it wasn’t enough for him to see as well as he would have liked.

The lights suddenly went back on and Blane’s head went in all directions. He saw nothing, but once he peeked around the crates, he saw an unconscious figure bound and gagged. The prisoner was dressed in a purple costume and his hair was white. Blane noticed that what was gone was the helmet he wore.

He ran over to the prisoner’s side and checked. Prometheus was still breathing, just out cold. That’s when he heard the sound of clapping. Blane looked off and saw a man come towards him, dressed in a brown trench coat. Once the man stepped into the light, Blane recognized him instantly. He lifted his gun and took aim.

“Now is that any way to treat an old friend, Agent Blane?” asked the man. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, the smoke circling from the tip around his facial features.

“There are a lot of things I’d call you, but ‘friend’ is nowhere near close to being on that list,” said Blane. “What’s this all about, Soames?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” asked Inspector Dudley Soames.

“Don’t you have a campaign to run?”

“That’s why I’m here,” said Soames. “Now tell me, when did the FBI start employing ruthless mercenaries to do their dirty work?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Blane.

“Sure you do,” said Soames. “Our good friend Prometheus here was recently incarcerated at Stryker’s Island. But what’s interesting is I checked the records. And according to the prison records, he’s still incarcerated there. So either this bloke isn’t Prometheus—which is highly doubtful seeing as how he looks exactly like the real deal—or someone secretly got him out. Someone with the power to get him out without the records being changed. Someone like a federal agent.”

“You’re out of your mind, Soames. I think the stress of the upcoming election is getting to you. I don’t have time to put up with this crap, so—“

“Giuseppe,” said Soames. Blane flinched. That caused Soames to smile. “Ah, looks like I’ve found out something I shouldn’t have.”

“You’re out of your league, Soames,” said Blane. “I don’t have time to waste with you anymore.”

“Oh, I think you do,” said Soames. “Y’see, I have proof that Prometheus is working for this Giuseppe character, who in turn is working for the FBI. And I plan on releasing this information to the press. Somehow, I doubt the Bureau will take kindly to the fact that the public is aware they’re actively financing drug kingpins, do you?”

“Or I could just shoot you right now, blame it on Prometheus, and everyone goes home happy,” said Blane.

“Actually… not quite,” said Soames. “Y’see, I have people working for me as well. People who will release this information to the press if I fail to report in.”

Blane slowly lowered his weapon. “What do you want?”

“No reason for us to be enemies, lad. We both want the same thing—Desmond out of Blüdhaven. And think of how much it will benefit you and your friends to have a mayor in your pockets.”

“Assuming you get elected,” said Blane.

“I can’t lose. I’ll be the candidate who brought down not only Roland Desmond, but also one of his most prominent employees—Chief Redhorn.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“’Course I can. The question is, do you or do you not want to get in on the action?” asked Soames.

The incident with Clancy had set back the heroes and Nightwing and the Huntress arrived at the harbor around the time that the ship was being unloaded. Nightwing removed a pair of small binoculars from a compartment on his boot and scanned the area, zooming in to get a good look at some of the men.

“I don’t recognize any of the faces, which means whoever this guy is, he’s bringing in a lot of outside people,” said Nightwing. “And if this guy is here, he could be anyone.”

The Huntress brandished her crossbow. “Shall we?”

“Sooner we get this over with, the sooner you’re out of my life,” said Nightwing. The pair leapt from the warehouse they stood atop and descended upon the criminals below.

Nightwing moved among them freely. Ever since he was a child, he had been performing acrobatics. In his adolescence he was trained by the Batman to be a crime fighter. Nightwing was one of the top fighters on the planet, a fact he proved every night he hits the streets. Today was no exception.

The Huntress was quite a different animal. Like her namesake, she goes after her prey in a merciless fashion. Whereas Nightwing was more polished, the Huntress was full of rage. It had the potential to get her killed one day and in fact it almost did just that. Only after months of physical therapy was the Huntress finally able to come back to the life of a heroine.

The thugs were no match for the pair. Whenever a gun was drawn or fired, it was quickly taken out by either a nightarang or a crossbow arrow. Nightwing and the Huntress moved together in unison, their differing styles working in conjunction to take out their opponents. It was like some sort of strange dance, and one neither of them would ever admit to themselves or anyone else that they had missed.

Almost as soon as the battle began, it had ended. Nightwing sent a signal to Oracle. She would then signal the police and they would come to confiscate the cargo. And some of it, surely, would vanish in transit. Another drawback of Blüdhaven. There were very few honest cops and even the ones who were actively working to take down the dirty ones—such as Dudley Soames—had far more blood on their hands.

The patches were inside the crates, just as Nightwing had suspected. He removed several of them, much to the Huntress’ shock. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I want to know exactly what we’re dealing with,” said Nightwing. “Maybe if we examine the patches, we can find some sort of clue as to who’s muscling in on Desmond’s territory. And if we can, that’s all the better for us.”

Off in the shadows, the Clock King looked down at his pocket watch with a smile on his face. The second Nightwing and the Huntress departed from the scene, he placed a cell phone to his ear. “They did just as you expected, sir.”

Nightwing and the Huntress soon found themselves in another warehouse further down the harbor. It was one Nightwing had bought out, under the same assumed name he rented a second apartment in Clancy’s building. From here, he could have his own personal base of operations where he could store vehicles as well as keep other crime fighting equipment.

“Nice place,” the Huntress said with a sarcastic quip.

“May not be the Batcave, but it gets the job done,” said Nightwing. He removed one of the patches from the wrapper it was held in and placed it on an electronic scanner. “Now let’s see what it is we’re dealing with…”

He closed the scanner and sat at a laptop computer. As the scanner analyzed the patch, the results came up on the screen. Nightwing looked at them with curiosity, and something didn’t seem to add up.

“That can’t be right…” he said.

“What?” asked the Huntress. She came up behind him and looked over his shoulder at the laptop.

“Venom is based on the Miraclo formula, but I can’t find any traces of it in any of these patches,” said Nightwing.

“What can you find?” asked the Huntress.

“Some anabolic steroids, but not even a high dosage of that,” said Nightwing. “Why would someone bring these in and try to pass them off as venom patches?”

“Maybe he couldn’t get them,” said the Huntress.

“Yeah, but why such a small dosage? Why not saturate these patches with steroids instead of just having small amounts of them?” asked Nightwing. “This has gotta be some sort of trick.”

“What if it’s not?” asked the Huntress.

Nightwing paused for a moment to consider his options. He suddenly stood and walked towards a motorcycle he stored in the warehouse. The Huntress watched him and said, “where are you going?”

“To get some answers,” he said. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on here and I think I may know who can help me.”

He fired up the bike and raced from the warehouse just as the door began to open. As soon as he was past the perimeter, it lowered once more, leaving the Huntress alone to contemplate what her next move would be.