"Robin!" - Regular Speech
'Starfire…' - Thoughts
"Report!" - Radio talk
Chapter 2: The Grey Ghost vs. The Teen Titans
The Mad Bomber's Secret Base, Docks, Jump City
Robin glared at the figure claiming to be the Grey Ghost. His gaze ran all over the cloaked figure's form and concluded that not only was this not Simon Trent, the figure was female.
"Hold it!" he ordered the figure.
The head of the Grey Ghost turned slightly, showing a completely masked face. "Ah, the Teen Titans…lead by Robin. Fly away, little robin. This isn't your concern."
"Help me!" Dymer screamed, "She's going to kill me!"
"Grow a pair, Mad Bomber." the Grey Ghost said in disgust, "At least die with some dignity."
The Grey Ghost pulled out a pair of odd-looking guns and levelled them at Ted Dymer's head.
Quickly, Starfire unleashed an optic blast from her eyes, forcing the caped figure to dodge out of the way. Dymer scrabbled away, a wet stain spreading across his trousers.
"You…will regret doing that." the Grey Ghost said angrily.
"Titans, move! Stop the Grey Ghost!" Robin ordered (and he couldn't believe he had just had to say that).
Before the Grey Ghost or the Titans could make a move, a hysterical laugh came from Dymer. He had pulled a secret tunnel open and ducked into it.
"See you later, losers!" he called as the wall slammed shut.
"NO!" the Grey Ghost howled in anger, "I will get you Dymer…once I spank some brats!"
The twin pistols in the hands of the Grey Ghost barked three times, slamming into Robin, much to Starfire's horror.
"Robin!" she cried in worry. The Boy Wonder grunted and staggered back, but didn't fall.
"Rubber…bullets?" he said in surprise.
The other caped figure didn't reply, but flicked a switch one way on the left gun and another the other way on the right gun.
Starfire, eyes glowing green, flew at the Grey Ghost with the intent to avenge the harm done to her paramour. The grey-clad figure pointed the left pistol at the Tamaranean and fired three times.
The alien princess dodged the first, but was struck on the arm by the other two. She got electrocuted by the rounds and dropped to the ground for a moment before standing back up, but wincing in pain.
"Hmm…Tamaranean physiology seems resilient to regular-strength taser rounds." the Ghost remarked analytically before pointing her right weapon at Cyborg and firing at him.
Raven got in front of her teammate and swiping across the area that the bullets would pass through, creating a shield that stopped the bullets. Except they weren't actually bullets, they were pellets of some kind.
"Last chance to back off." the Grey Ghost said as she holstered her weapons behind her and took a martial arts stance, "I am not going to hold back considering you made me lose my prey."
"Who are you and why are you after the Mad Bomber?" Robin demanded.
"I am the Grey Ghost and I seek to avenge the murder of Simon Trent, my predecessor." the masked woman stated, "Nothing more, nothing less."
With that, the Grey Ghost rushed Robin, who pulled out his staff. He lashed out with it, but the charging figure agilely leapt over it and pointed one finger at the face of the Boy Wonder. Gas erupted from the extended finger and engulfed his head, making him stagger back, coughing. Then, the room seemed to swirl and fade out.
As Robin collapsed, Raven moved into action.
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she chanted, wrapping her black power around a large amount of the nearby debris and sending it hurtling at the Grey Ghost, who lashed out with her cape of all things, smashing the debris out of the air and not so much as scratching the cape.
Cyborg loomed behind the Grey Ghost and grabbed her, pinning her arms to her side. "Gotcha!"
"Or so you think." the masked woman said…before becoming insubstantial and phasing through his arms. Cyborg cried out in pain as both of his arms malfunctioned, sparks flying and numerous errors being reported, leaving him open to a kick to the chest by a rematerialised Grey Ghost, sending the half-mechanical teen crashing to the ground.
Beast Boy shifted into a silverback gorilla and charged her with a roar, only to be floored by a set of bolas fired from her other gauntlet that wrapped around his legs and made him smash onto the ground with a grunt. He immediately shifted into a python and slithered out of the bindings, only to be wrapped up by a line shot from Grey Ghost's other gauntlet and electrocuted.
Beast Boy fainted and reverted to his human form, the taser line snapping off as he did so.
"How dare you hurt my friends?!" Starfire bellowed as she attacked the Grey Ghost. Koriand'r of Tamaran was an expert in several martial arts of her homeworld and was wicked fast to go along with it, but her opponent on this case didn't particularly care about matching her in close combat. She dodged Starfire's first punch before grabbing the offending arm and sending a strong electric shock into her foe, rendering her insensate and then throwing her into Raven, who caught her friend awkwardly.
"Interfere again and I will not play nice." the Grey Ghost informed her before running out through the entrance to the tunnel leading out of the place.
"Oh boy." Raven sighed as she looked over her friends, "This is gonna be a pain."
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Later
Main Lounge, Titan's Tower
"We so got our butts kicked." Beast Boy grumbled. The changeling was eating some tofu waffles to comfort himself.
"That chick had more fancy gadgets than you do, Rob." Cyborg remarked.
"Yeah…" Robin said slowly, "It was all prepared very well. The gloves have taser lines, knockout gas sprays, a mini-bolas launcher and shock pads built into them. Those pistols had shot selectors allowing her to switch from rubber bullets to taser rounds to that last kind she used."
"Ceramic beads." Cyborg supplied, "A very dense type of ceramic designed to pierce through metal. I'd say she loaded these specifically to eliminate me, but what ever that weird ghosting thing that she did fried my arms just as well as these boys coulda done."
"Your arms are operable once again?" Starfire asked in concern.
"Yeah, Rob and Raven got my backups connected and everything." the cybernetic teen said, gesturing with his replacement appendages, indistinguishable from the originals, "My original pair'll need a lot of repairs to get them even working again. Every circuit was slagged to liquid silicon by whatever she did."
"The costume could be made in a month's time, but the rest of it?" Robin shook his head, "I'd say that whoever the Grey Ghost is, they were intending to come out as a hero or villain anyway and had prepared all of the equipment beforehand. The murder of Simon Trent merely expedited things."
"I'd agree." Cyborg nodded, "But man, she tore us up. What was that gas she used on you, Rob?"
"A derivative of The Scarecrow's Fear Gas, greatly toned down and with a large knockout component added to it." Robin replied, "Not a very pleasant combination. If it wasn't for Raven's healing abilities, I'd still have a huge headache and feel nauseous."
"Question is, who is this chick…she is a girl, right?" Cyborg asked.
"Definitely." Robin replied, "I don't know who she is…but I might have an idea on how to find out."
The leader of the Titans stood up and started walking towards the main door.
"Robin?" Starfire called out.
"I'll be back soon." the teen replied before exiting the room, the door hissing shut behind him.
Robin's Room
Robin sighed as he entered his room and enacted several security protocols that would not only prevent him from being heard outside the room, but also beefed his network security by a considerable margin.
He had promised himself that he would never use this particular connection, despite the fact he had had it constructed in secret. Not even Raven or Cyborg knew about it to the best of his knowledge.
The masked teen approached the wall of leads to do with Slade and pressed several of the red marker pins in a specific order. A screen, keyboard and seat appeared from a nearby wall and floor.
Sitting down, Robin typed away for a moment before the screen went black. Them a pair of familiar faces appeared on it, a vast cave appearing in the background.
"Dick." Batman said shortly.
"Bruce." Robin replied briskly, "Barbra."
"What's up?" Batgirl asked, "You don't write, you don't call…now you use a secret link to vidcall us."
"The Mad Bomber." Robin stated flatly, "Ted Dymer is in my city."
Batman's cowled face became more menacing. "Did you capture him?" he asked.
"No." Robin replied, "My team and I were the second people to discover him. The one who got there before us was…the Grey Ghost. Dymer escaped in the confusion."
"Impossible." Batman stated flatly, "Simon Trent is dead. I saw his body myself."
"This new Grey Ghost is female." the former apprentice replied, "Not to mention tooled up with gear…a few designs I recognise from WayneTech. I suspect that the true identity of the Grey Ghost…is Simon Trent's grandniece."
"That would make sense." Batgirl nodded, "Batman and I went over Simon Trent's house with a fine toothed comb. No sign of forced entry or a struggle. She just…vanished."
"I think she was planning on becoming a hero before all this happened." Robin offered, "The amount of gear she possessed and the quality of her costume aren't the kind of thing you throw together in less than a month's time. Thing is, now she's walking down a dark path…the same one you stopped me from going down after my parents were killed."
"She tried to kill Dymer, didn't she?" Batman guessed.
"If Starfire hadn't stopped her, Dymer would be dead." Robin stated flatly, "As it is, she trounced us. She got me with a mix similar to the Scarecrow's Fear Gas, Beast Boy with bolas and a taser line and some kind of phase-shift generator to become insubstantial to escape Cyborg, which fried his arms."
"That last one is definitely WayneTech." the Dark Knight scowled, "It's called the Ghost-Field Generator. It was stolen from a lab…the same one that Trent's grandniece was working at, now I come to think about it."
"But she couldn't be more than…" Robin muttered.
"She's eighteen." Batgirl informed him.
"Can you send me any information about her?" Robin asked, "The GCPD reports were very light on details."
"Unfortunately, there are no details to give that were on paper or databases." Batman replied sourly, "When she vanished, a virus spread throughout every database that possessed any mention of her and corrupted the data irrecoverably. Fraudulent orders were sent to have any paper backups destroyed as well. People who knew her cannot recall anything about her. She ghosted herself with all the skill of a trained government agent. Even the Bat Computer was affected. Bruce Wayne is the only person not affected by whatever erased everyone else's memories."
"What can you tell me about her?" Robin asked.
"Simone Trent was named after her granduncle." Batman stated, "She has a natural flair for mechanics, but her real genius is troubleshooting other people's work and fixing it. She has the uncanny knack to see why something isn't working and what is needed to remedy the problem. I'd call her a technopath, but it applies to chemistry, physics and a whole host of other fields as well. She idolised her granduncle and the one time I met her after Simon was killed, she was full of rage and grief."
"So the timeline of events is that the Mad Bomber is broken out of Arkham Asylum, he kills Trent, she steals the Ghost-Field Generator and adds it to the other gadgets that she gathered, ghosts herself and then starts tracking town Dymer." Robin recited, "Something I need to know here; who organised the breakout at Arkham?"
"Unknown. Possibly Black Mask or Two-Face." The Dark Knight replied, "Why?"
"The base and equipment that Dymer had was all brand new, at least it was before the Grey Ghost smashed it." Robin answered, "Cyborg tracked down some serial numbers leading to hijacked and stolen goods from two months ago…before Dymer was broken out of Arkham."
"So whoever organised the breakout set Dymer up in Jump City." Batman concluded, "Why Dymer though? The villains released were mostly small-names. Lockup, Mad Bomber, the Clock King, Ratcatcher…the only reasonably big name was Firefly, and he left Gotham as soon as he could on a contract."
"Whoever organised this probably didn't want you to go to interfere." Robin theorised, "So he couldn't or wouldn't go for Killer Croc or any of the heavy hitters or big names in Arkham without rousing your suspicions. Have any of the escapees done anything since the breakout?"
"No." Batgirl replied with a frown, "Not a peep out of them. We didn't notice until now because Black Mask and the Penguin have been fighting a turf war recently."
"There is a chance that whoever organised the breakout also hired some or all of the villains who escaped from Arkham." Batman stated, "I am unsure who it is, but I will find out who and why in short order."
Robin nodded. "I'm going to let my team know most of what you told me, other than the fact I got the information from you. We'll track down Dymer and send him to Gotham. What should be done about Simone Trent?"
"At the moment, she has not committed any crime aside from being a vigilante." Batman's mouth quirked slightly at that before returning to its usual imperturbable façade, "Still, she has declared her intent to kill Ted Dymer. Stop her from succeeding. If she does succeed…I'll be there to take care of her. Personally."
The Boy Wonder felt a chill go down his spine at that. The Grey Ghost was good…but not good enough to stand up to Batman.
"I'll make sure it doesn't become necessary." Robin stated coolly, "Keep me informed about the investigation."
He reached for the switch to disconnect the connection when Bruce spoke up.
"Dick…you don't have to stay as Robin." he said softly, "After what happened…"
"I want to be Robin." Dick Grayson growled back, "It's a part of who I am, Bruce. You don't get to decide what I do and do not do, not anymore."
He pushed the button and disconnected, standing up as the screen, keyboard and seat slid smoothly back to where they had been hidden beforehand.
"This case is going to get personal." he muttered before leaving his room to get the rest of the Titans up to date.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Later
Unknown Location
The room was dark, except for in the middle, where a table stood with five seats stood around it, all filled.
"You, Ted Dymer, are pathetic." a man wearing a neat brown suit and spectacles with clock hands on the lenses stated. He sipped a cup of tea and then carefully replaced in on its saucer before continuing, "You were caught on your first caper in this little town in a most timely fashion by our former nemesis' former apprentice and his gaggle of goons."
"Even I wouldn't let that happen to me." chuckled a man sitting opposite the first. He wore a green trench coat, yellow gloves, yellow thigh-high boots and a maroon gas mask.
"It wasn't just Robin, Clock King." Dymer growled, "And you shut it, Ratcatcher! It was the goddamned Grey Ghost!"
"Who now?" asked a large man wearing a blue and black costume with white shoulder pads and gloves.
"That was the name of the part played by Simon Trent the actor, Lockup" Clock King replied snootily, "It is impossible for the Grey Ghost to be here because our benefactor eliminated him for our colleague here."
"Yeah? Well either he failed or someone new is wearing the suit!" Dymer bit back, "Whoever it is smashed my equipment and toys with goddamn guns! If the Titans hadn't shown up, I'd be dead!"
"Quit yer yammering, you weed!" a man dressed in a grey bodysuit with a bee-like mask snarled, "If ya had grown a pair and actually learned how to fight, you might have been able to actually be of use here!"
"I'm a bomber, not a frontline fighter, Firefly!" Dymer pointed out with a scowl.
"I daresay Ratcatcher could protest that he isn't a frontline fighter as well, but he at least knows how to do a few self defence moves." Clock King sniffed, "Our sponsor is not going to be pleased that you were sent scurrying with your tail between your legs."
"I'm not." a voice growled over speakers as a screen activated, showing a basic silhouette of a man with no details.
"Ah, sir. I take it you heard of this little…mishap." Clock King said uncomfortably.
"I have indeed." the man who had arranged the liberation of the five villains from Arkham Asylum said, "Mad Bomber, report. What exactly happened today?"
Dymer once again recounted his attempt at extorting money from Jump City; the initial successful bombing of the GothCorp Plastics Factory, the failed attempt at bombing the bank, being tracked down by the mysterious Grey Ghost as well as the Teen Titans and of course his narrow escape.
"Simon Trent is indeed dead." the figure said once Dymer finished his tale, "An old man could not have escaped the bomb I planted. Whoever this is that has assumed the mantle of the Grey Ghost is a fly in the ointment. The Teen Titans are a known factor; this Grey Ghost is not. We should move to eliminate this hindrance as soon as is feasible. I shall arrange for another base to be prepared for you, Mad Bomber. This time, however, there shall be four additional obstacles in case our revenant returns."
Lockup grunted and mashed a fist onto the table, shaking it. "Good. I was lookin' to cream me a caped crusader. Robin or this Grey Ghost will do nicely."
"Eliminating a pest quickly is what I do best." Ratcatcher chortled as he drew his gas gun and admired it before holstering it once more.
"I shall ensure it happens in a precise timely manner." Clock King stated.
"I wonder how well a Ghost burns?" Firefly snickered.
"If it'll get that ghoul off my back…OK." Dymer sighed.
"Excellent." purred the figure, "I shall contact you when I have everything prepared. Be alert. Slade is not a man who likes it when others putter about in his territory, and you are all above the buffoons that infest this city other than Slade."
With that, the screen blanked.
"Who IS that guy?" Dymer muttered.
"An excellent question." Clock King mused, "But not one that needs answering for the moment. He effected our release from Arkham and is paying us rather handsomely to work for him. For the moment, we need not concern ourselves with his identity, merely the speed of his wire transfers to our bank accounts."
"Yep." Firefly said as he stood up, "For a merc like me, the bottom line is the most important thing."
'How did I wind up with these people?' Ted Dymer moaned to himself as he staggered off to bed.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Next Chapter: Ghost Hunt
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
