Justice League And The Hounds Of Hell

Chapter 11: More than Meets the Eye

He stood with his back to us, staring at nothing on the computer. The conflict in the park had left Ace quite energetic, he paced around the Batcave sniffing at everything and then settled himself at a spot by the desk where he could see all of us and chewed on something he'd found. I wanted to see what it was and try to coax him away from it, but doing so would make me lose a hand.

I took another deep breath from the oxygen mask they'd put on me and watched my father, waiting for the inevitable scolding to come.

"That vial was a pending patent of Wayne Enterprises, an isolated growth hormone called Cerestone. We thought it could solve the world hunger problem by making fresh food cheaper and more readily available." He sighed. "It's come under attack because some believe there's more profit in hunger. Others believe it could be weaponized, and used to stimulate muscle growth, like a heightened, more concentrated form of venom. We were in the process of isolating the genomes to make it harmless and only applicable to plants, but it wasn't working." He turned around to look at me. "That was the only sample we had."

Ace stopped tearing at the thing he'd found and watched us talk with curious brown eyes.

I lowered the oxygen mask. "Dad, I'll find it--"

He shook his head. "You went against Catwoman, alone. You went against Poison Ivy, alone and nearly gave yourself and her a fatal dose of that poison in the process. That vial, in the wrong hands, will be disastrous." He turned to Tim. "And you sent the dog against a lion! What were you thinking?"

"He just followed me into the car and lunged at me when I tried to get him out!" Tim scratched the back of his head. "I mean, it ended up being a good thing, he saved Krystal."

"He could've died." Batman twisted back on me with a scowl. "You could have died!"

"Any one of us could die at any time!" I shook my head. "I'm sorry, okay? I thought I could handle it."

But I thought wrong.

I started coughing again and inhaled the clean air from the tank.

He was having the same thought, but he didn't speak it. I wanted to go back, and wait just a second longer. I wished I was fast enough to travel through time, but I hadn't been lucky enough to be given any powers. His back was on me again, and I saw his shoulders slump with a thick sigh.

"You two are going to Titans East this weekend."

"But, my case?"

He was quiet for a while, spinning the files around his head. "Take it with you."

"How am I supposed to close it over there? I'll do Teen Titans, maybe you're right, I don't play well with others." I pleaded. "But, I need to be here for this case, we'll push the titans back, for now."

"You're going and that's the end of it."

"What about Ace?"

He glanced at the yawning mass of silver fur and teeth. "He's staying here."

I frowned. "I promised that I would be with him through every step of his rehabilitation process."

"Do you honestly think the dog knows any different!?" He snarled. "And we're just going to forget that you brought him here without my consent and you convinced both Tim and Alfred to help you do exactly what I told you not to do."

"You were telling me to let him die! I couldn't do it!"

Ace barked at us with a ferocious growl under his fangs. He'd made a massive amount of progress over the last couple weeks we'd had him, but "excited" speech--as the behaviorist referred to it--still frightened him. We both glanced at him and then back at each other.