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Not Bad...For A Rookie
The Iceberg Lounge boasted Gotham's newest Grand Hotel Casino, with the best games, fast food and faster girls in the city. Well over sixty stories high, it was lit by almost a hundred spotlights to give the appearance of an upright tower of crystal, a shard of diamond on Gotham's horizon reaching for the heavens.
To Damian, it was the cleanest looking cesspool in history. The sun had nearly set as he drove at dizzying speeds across one of the city's many bridges, weaving his motorbike expertly through traffic and pedestrians. It took him twenty minutes to reach the Iceberg, which had been sectioned off by the GCPD with countless squad cars and swat vans. The arrival of a costumed vigilante was so common that the men and women in uniform did not question him as Robin made a beeline for the commissioner.
"Have there been any demands?" Damian asked, the one question he had been trained to ask by his father. Demands hinted at motivation. Motivation hinted at a criminal's state of mind and how best to predict and defeat him.
Gordon blinked at the teenager for a moment. "Where's the big guy?"
"Doing big things." Damian threw back. "Are they asking for anything?"
"Yes. Money."
"Of course. Have they opened a dialogue?"
"Yes. But not with us." The commissioner added.
"What do you mean?"
Instead of answering, Gordon jerked his thumb upwards to a spot on the building nearly thirteen stories up. Damian made out several large broken windows side by side. Two thugs in samurai kabuki masks with generic semi-automatic guns stood watch. Then three more men showed up, dressed like the others, but holding what looked to be a large white log between the three of them. Damian gave a whistle when the men threw their load out the window, revealed it to be a canvas on which was written, "Nelsons, call 236-453-8495 for ransom payment."
"Impressive." Robin smirked. "Instead of negotiating with you, they're contacting the relatives of the hostages using the media. Give them a number to call and tell them where to wire the money, presumably untraceable offshore accounts. I assume they're actually releasing the hostages?"
"Yep. When the first hostage was released, everyone gave up on us handling the situation and followed suit." Gordon sighed, seeing a young woman and an older man leaving the Iceberg by the main entrance, running away from their captors as fast as they could. Several of Gordon's men and women wrapped them in blankets and took them to their families. "If we try to call instead of the families, the hostage dies. They made that very clear. This is happening all around the building and things are going rather smoothly. If this continues, most of the hostages will be safe."
"Nothing for Cobblepot yet." Robin observed. "I doubt even his lawyers would spend his own money to save him."
Gordon smiled ironically at that statement. "Not even his mother would pay for his freedom, the scumbag."
"Well, I guess this will handle itself easily enough. I'll be going." Robin said, seeing no point in remaining. Besides, he had an appointment with...
"Not just yet." The commissioner interjected. "I want you to wait."
"Why?"
"They can't trade out all the hostages, otherwise we'll be able to storm them. They will have to keep a few for protection and have an escape plan. That means a potential for something to go wrong. I would rather have you around just in case."
"...Fine." Robin said, walking back into the nearest alley way. "If you want to reach me I'll be on the higher frequency end of your radios."
"Where are you going?" Gordon called out before the coming night swallowed the young man. "I thought you agreed to wait."
"I did." Robin called back just before disappearing entirely. "But I never said I would wait out here."
Damian's plan was simple. With the sun now below the horizon and Gotham in the early hours of night, the young man found the nearest building a few stories taller than the Iceberg Lounge five blocks away and accessed the roof.
Using night vision binoculars, Damian scouted the rooftop of the Lounge and saw it was guarded by five armed snipers, each in full tactical gear and several rocket-launchers. If a helicopter tried to land, they would blow it away. But Robin could glide in unseen until he was on top of them.
"It's a good plan." Said a feminine voice behind Damian, causing him to turn his head.
Cassandra Cain, known publicly as a former Batgirl, now Black Bat, stepped out of the darkness from behind a large roof vent and into the moonlight. Dressed in full body gear with a mask over her face, the young Chinese woman looked fully capable of taking down an entire crime syndicate.
Black Bat continued, "Find a safe spot to gather intel and form a plan of action. Smart. Just how Batman trained us to think."
"I apologize about dinner. I hope to resolve this as quickly as possible." Damian returned to his scouting, unfazed from Cassandra's sudden appearance.
"This is more important. Lives are at stake." Black Bat said understandingly. "Besides, you knew as well as I that keeping arrangements as members of The Family is very difficult. And since we are going to be together later on anyway, I figured I'd come and help."
Robin grinned. "So you guessed at my plan and knew what rooftop I'd be staging my attack from and waited for me? That's impressive. It only reinforces my belief that you are the right one."
"Right one for what?" Cassandra asked as she leaned next to Damian to get a look at the layout herself.
The young man brushed the question aside. "Later. Right now we take care of these goons. I suppose if you deduced my plan so far you've guessed the rest?"
"More or less." Black Bat replied. "Head for the roof, take out the snipers, infiltrate the Lounge and save the hostages after cutting off any means of escape."
A satisfied grinned crossed Damian's lips. "Not bad...for a rookie."
"Excuse me?" Cassandra's asked, surprise in her tone. "Didn't I beat you in a one on one fight before?"
"Sure, when I was a snot-nosed twelve year old. And fighting skill has nothing to do with this. As great as you are at punching, the plan you just laid out would result in the death of at least half the hostages."
"How?" pausing for a moment, Cassandra took a moment to use her imagination to play out the events of the plan she had just suggested. "If we took out the roof baddies, who are doubtless constantly reporting in to the others inside, their sudden silence would get noticed. The criminals would know something was up."
"Exactly." Damian nodded. "So with that in mind, what should we do?"
"...Break in where there are sure to be less guards. Somewhere in the middle of the Lounge."
"Very good. I assume your gloves have the window adhesion upgrade?"
"Of course."
"Then let's go."
Both heroes leapt off the skyscraper and opened their capes, gliding under the cover of darkness toward the Iceberg Lounge.
It took them three minutes of gliding to reach the target building, cut a hole in a window on the 22nd floor and slip inside undetected. The room Robin and Black Bat found themselves in was best described as an upscale hotel suit, complete with open bar and...many other distractions.
"A dancing pole?" Cassandra noted as they made their way to the entrance. "I guess Cobblepot does his best to keep his 'guests' happy."
"What better way to have a mobster agree to fork over a multi-million dollar investment than to hypnotize him with a few pretty girls? Girls that are often abused and beaten, addicted to drugs and kept in line by making an example of those who try to leave." Damian noted darkly as he cracked the door open.
The hall was empty.
"With snipers on the roof and most of the crooks on the lower floor watching the hostages and giving directions for the ransoms, a small skeleton crew will be patrolling the other floors." Robin eye's caught sight of a swiveling security camera down the hallway. "We need to get to the security room. That's where most of their eyes will be and where we can read the terrain the best."
"Which floor is it on?" Cassandra asked. "I don't have access to the Bat-Computer anymore. I haven't seen the blueprints."
"I have, on the drive over. It's three doors down on the right. We didn't break in on this floor for nothing."
Suddenly, through the open window behind them, both vigilantes heard a loud gunshot from further below their floor.
"Something tells me we need to hurry." Cassandra said evenly.
"-zzzt- Robin, do you read me?" Gordon's voice cracked over Damian's earpiece.
"What happened?" Robin asked.
"Punks just shot a young woman in full display to everybody because her lawyers tried to negotiate the ransom. -zzztttt- A lot more people are going to die very soon!"
"On it. Hang tight." Robin looked at Black Bat, who nodded.
Both looked back toward the camera, waiting until it faced away, then made their move. Quiet as air, they sped down the hall, made it three doors down and rushed inside. Three armed men, dressed in clean suits and kabuki masks, with assault rifles in their hands, had only enough time to gasp in shock before getting attacked.
Black Bat jumped forward and kicked the nearest one so hard in the face she snapped the mask in half, revealing a broken nose. Still in the air, she threw a batarang at a second goon had been sitting in front of the dozen security monitors and had tried to sound the alarm over the radio. The batarang collided with his head with enough force to knock him out cold. The first goon tried to throw a punch, nose bleeding all over his suit, but got kicked in the teeth for his trouble. A quick choke hold finished him off.
Robin took the last and largest man. His straight edge katana sliced through the air as he drew it, cleaving the masked man's rifle neatly in two. Staggering back in surprise, the man was too slow to avoid Robin's heel, which struck him in the temple and sent him crashing unceremoniously to the ground.
"That's two for me." Cassandra said with a hint of pride.
"Night's not over yet." Sheathing his blade, Damian pushed the unconscious man that had been viewing the many monitors out of the chair and sat down, looking at the live feeds. "We got twelve men at the bottom floor with the hostages near the south elevators. Six are on the 13th floor, giving the ransom demands and...that's strange..."
"What?" Cassandra asked as she removed the kabuki masks from the other motionless goons.
"The basement cameras have been disabled." Damian observed, the three monitors for that section of the Lounge showing nothing but gray static."
"I thought the masks were just for show." Cassandra began, looking at the face of the man whose mask she broke. "But they are Japanese. Did Cobblepot make some enemies with the Yakuza?"
"No idea." Damian admitted. "I think...-tt-..."
"What?"
"Someone else didn't pay the ransom. They're taking a couple into the elevators at gunpoint and bringing them up to the 13th floor."
"We need to stop them." Cassandra said firmly.
"The moment we do they will open fire on the other hostages." Damian pointed out.
"We split up. I take the 13th, you take the main floor." Black Bat hurried out the door before Robin could reply.
"I love it when she takes charge." Damian grinned. Turning back to the monitor, his eyes narrowed at the three blank screen of what should have been basement surveillance. What was happening down there? "No time for that now."
He needed to get to the party floor fast before Gotham had it's biggest 1% massacre since his murdered grandparents.
Damian is one of those characters I never knew we were going to see in the Batman franchise. Back when Jason Todd came along they tried to have him talk back to Batman so that he would look tough. It didn't work so well in the long run with the fans. But Damian had this completely different mentality of trying to please his father while bashing all the other former robins with his fists. He was a robin Batman would have to thaw out, which makes for a really interesting read.
And he made the perfect Robin for Dick Grayson's more light-hearted Batman.
