"oooo, your familiar's so cute!" Zatara patted the staff, "yeah, we found out that this drug is half magic, half science. I've never seen something like it before-but if it's got magic we should be able to trace it back to it's source right?"

"meow <3"

"Can I see it?" She took the pill and wrapped a ball of energy around it, looking it over. The pill turned this way and that as her eyes glowed, looking at the magical currents and such. "...This...Is that?"

"Meow." Coco turned back into a cat, hissing at the pill.

"...That bastard." She said bluntly, removing the pink ball from the pill and handing it back to Zatara. "I know who's behind this...And I feel this is partly my fault..."

That certainly had everyone's attention immediately. Batman looked just about ready to demand it from but Zatara spoke with a kinder voice, "I'm sure you couldn't have known. Why don't you tell us what happened?" she summoned a few chairs over for them to sit.

Ceres sat down. Smooth, Ceres. 5 mins into meeting Batman and you point out that this is partly your fault. She choose to sum up instead of going into great detail. She formed a large ball of light, and created images of what she was referring to"You're looking for Loki, Prince of Asgard and Brother of Thor. Because of my actions, his father gave him a chance to redeem himself and stripped him of his powers and sent him here to earth to live out his sentence. Asgard is made up of Magic and Science. Both equal in value. Loki managed to escape the eyes of Shield and has been missing ever since. When he escaped, he took a very powerful object from me. Shield has been working non stop to locate and capture him. I believe where ever he is, this is his doing. A way to try and get himself his magic back. But-"

"But for him to do something like this would take a quite the resources." Ciara jumped in.

"Correct."

"This changes everything" Batman frowned, turning to Oracle, "Change the search parameters. We aren't looking for new shipping companies, they would have had old reliable ones waiting in the shadows for something like this. Anything more than three years."

Oracle nodded and began switching things up from her remote connection, "okay, these are the ones we stopped... they were new though-wait a minute. On the surface maybe but they each branched off of older companies. Here we go..." she skimmed through several more things.

"There are very few people with those kind of resources, straight off the bat" Batman frowned, "most of these organizations have to start small somewhere."

"So what are you thinking?" Oracle questioned.

"I'm thinking I just figured out why someone's company has been destroying their competition" Batman replied, "and Red Devil is only the tip of the iceberg"

Ceres was looking down at her toes. She felt responsible for this. She should inform Sheild of this but she didn't know if Batman would want that and after being the messagner to this information, she didn't feel like she had permission to ask anything.

"Sunset Corp" Oracle concluded as they worked through the information in a new light.

"Luther's favourite shell company" Batman nodded, then turned back to the three magic users in the room, "but we still need a location."

Ciara patted Ceres on the back, "You ready?"

Ceres snapped back into reality. "Let's do this." She got up and stood in one of the spots on the drawn runes on the floor. She held her staff sideways and her palm facing the middle. "Ready."

Zatara took her place next, "Let's do this"

Together they went through the motions of casting, their target, the drug, sat between them. The pill rose into the air, spun in circles and then the casing suddenly dropped to the ground but the inside powder stayed in the air until the end of the spell. Then the powder fell, forming an arrow on the floor.

"Oracle" Batman looked at her.

"On it" Oracle replied, sending one of her gadgets over to scan the arrow and then upload it's trajectory into the computer. "Cross referencing the line with every known Luther building..." there were a few that were close and one exactly along the line. "Got it!"

"Sweet!" Robin cheered, "Let's go get him!"

"Permission to come along. If Loki is there, I must get my possession back." She asked Batman, approaching him carefully.

Batman looked at her, "Take what you want, but if Loki is really responsible, you leave him for me"

"Thank you." She bowed her head humbly and moved to get out of everyone's way till they left.. At least she had been able to point them in the right direction

So they followed the new intel. Batman gathered the basic team together, Robin, Nightwing, Stingray, Batgirl and Ceres. Half of Young Justice would be nearby for backup if needed, the other half would stay and take care of Gotham.

They entered the building as stealthily as possible, making their way to the basement levels. The doors burst open to reveal numerous people at work. Some were in lab coats, some looked like street kids hopped up on the drug. Immediately one of the scientists yelled, "Kill them!" he ordered, there was no way he was going to go toe to toe with Batman!

Instantly the drug users charged forward, brandishing their deadly brand of red magic.

Ciara looked up, emergency water sprinklers prefect. She sucked the water out and formed large blades on the end of her arms, charging forth.

Ceres couldn't tell if she could sensed her Tome. There was too much magic in the air from the drugs. 2 drug users charged at her, she waved her hands in circles and the two users soon found themselves in pink bubbles... which shocked them.

The team spread out, keeping a solid line to the exit so that no one would escape and soon just about everybody had been taken out. Only one scientist remained, back against the far side of the room next to another set of doors.

Suddenly one of those doors burst open and Loki himself stepped out, "What is all the ra-oh hello" he looked around the room, no one here was familiar except for one, "Ceres" he smiled at her, "You found me."

In a desperate move, the scientist then stabbed Loki in the arm with a syringe filled with red liquid and injected it into him, "kill them!" he demanded.

Loki blinked, turning only his head to look at the man, "Or what?"

"Or... or I won't make you any more of it and you'll die!" the scientist proclaimed.

Laughter filled the air, evidently the god found this hilarious, "You-ha, you're trying to threaten me"

"i-it was a concentrated dose" the man looked bewildered

Loki plucked the empty needle from his arm and dropped it on the ground, then in a flash he had the man by the neck, "First of all, I don't need your help to make it. Secondly, no one orders me around and finally" he grinned, "why do you think the damned thing is so deadly to humans in the first place? Because it's made for an Azgardian" he blinked, his eyes suddenly burning blood red, "and I've been taking it for weeks."

The scientist was trying to gasp for breath, there was nothing anyone could do about it either. Loki was too fast and in a few more seconds it was too late anyway. A red smoke wrapped itself around the human, causing him to dry up and turn to dust in two blinks of an eye. As the cremated human slipped from Loki's fingers he turned his red gaze back towards Ceres, "It is good to see you again."

Ceres froze when she saw Loki and Stingray had to jump in front of her to punch one of the druggies out before he could attack Ceres.

She felt her stomach twist and her heart ache. She had thought this would be easier but it wasn't. She bit her lip, her staff becoming sharper on the tip as she pointed it toward him defensively, "I wish I could say the same, Asagdian Prince. Where.is.my.tome?" She said bluntly, forcing herself to remain as emotionless as possible but Loki had already seen the heart ache on her face when he said her name.

His expression softened, completely ignoring the others that were now surrounding him, "Ceres, don't tell me you came all this way for only that old book?"

"We came all this way to put an end to you and everything you're doing here" Batman interjected.

"Hush little mortal, the grownups are talking" Loki rolled his eyes.

"Why else would I be here?! I gave you no reason to lie to me. And you did, stole from me AND left without even a bloody note." The words came out cold but her eyes were filled with emotion. She was losing her nerve.

Loki took a step towards her but was quickly met with Nightwing's staff in his face so he stopped, "Ceres, I lied to you practically from the moment we met, yet not once after we actually got to know each other. Not to mention the fact that the only way I was ever going to get you to talk to Odin was to get you away from everyone else. Trust me, I did the math on that one. You lent me that book freely and, I am willing to bet half the riches of Azgard that the first thing you did upon returning was to bring Shield in to apprehend me. Please, tell me I'm wrong." he met her gaze with unyielding eyes.

Ceres looked down, "You could have just asked! I would have spoken to your father regardless."

Loki eyed her, "Think about that, very carefully. You're saying that you would have tried to get me off the hook after I destroyed that school and-did I kill anyone in the end? I wasn't really paying attention. Because up until the moment you left that place, that was the only interaction we had had. And even when you saw me after that, it took quite some time before you even considered calling me out to actually speak to me."

Ceres thought it over and he did have several good points. She lowered her staff slightly. "...I...I guess I wouldn't have."

"There" Loki smiled, "now that's all out in the open, how about we go our separate ways?"

"Not happening" Batman glared and the team moved in as one. Nightwing made to trip him but Loki skipped over it. Robin shot his grapple that wrapped around Loki's arm but with a little red smoke it burned away. Batgirl aimed a swift kick at his head but he caught her ankle and sent her flying and Batman moved in last to try and grab him, only to have the trickster vanish in a cloud of red smoke that left Batman's lungs burning the moment he breathed it in.
Suddenly Loki was leaning against a table on the other side of the room, "Really now? I think I'm a little out of your league. And here I was even thinking of giving the book back." he looked to Ceres, "can't you keep your pets under control?"

"They aren't my pets Loki. What you've done is hurting people! Their people." She marched over and stopped a few feet away because Ciara grabbed her arm.

"Ceres calm down." Ciara whispered, it was clear that Ceres had left some details out of the story she told. She was over emotion and hurt. Her gem was glowing and she wasn't listening to Ciara.

"You were given a second chance and you waste it by hurting more and more people!" Tears started to form, "Why Loki? WHY?!" She shot a bolt of pink light at him, in an attempt to encase him in a bubble.

Loki shot his own beam of red back at her while dodging to the side skillfully. The magic met and sizzled in a sickening way, "Because you FAILED" he snapped back at her, "And this is what I've had to do to get myself back on top. It doesn't concern me how Luthor uses what information I give him, as long as he gives me what I require in return. And he has. So if you've come to put a stop to all this, then allow me. I don't require his services anymore. I have enough of the elixer to finish what I started and to get back what is mine. Perhaps you and I can get together again once I'm done. It's always a pleasure seeing you"