CHAPTER TWO
Barbara Gordon quickly ducked into her room, before answering her communicator. "What is it Bat's?" she asked.
"A Breakout in Gotham, Robin's…. out, so I'll need your help" Batman said
"Wait, what happened to Robin?" Barbara asked, an edge of worry creeping into her voice.
"Meet me at the Batcave in 10 minutes," Batman said completely ignoring her question. "Batman out."
"Wait, What happened to Robin?" Barbara asked into her comm. before realizing Batman had ended the communication. Barbara quickly suited up, sending a text to Dick asking what happened, and telling him to respond as soon as he could. Having that out of the way, Barbara was soon on her way to the Batcave.
When she finally got there, Batman was waiting for her. As she walked in, the first thing out of her mouth was a question, "Where's Dick?"
Batman completely ignored her, and immediately moved on to briefing. "The breakout occurred here," Batman said, pulling up a holographic map of Arkam Asylum. "So I want you to patrol here, to here." Batman finished, closing down the map, and heading for the exit.
"Wait," Barbara said, looking at Batman strangely. "WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BEST FRIEND?" She asked taking great care to pause between each word.
Batman sighed. "I don't know. After training he walked off, and I found him unconscious on the ground a few minutes later. Before I could do any investigating I got the message that there had been a breakout in Arkam," Batman explained "Alfred's looking after him right now." He added.
Barbara could tell that, like her, Batman was worried for Dick. After all, Batman was his legal guardian. However she also knew that it wouldn't get in the way of his work, and she would have to do the same. "Ok," She said. "But as soon as we get back your telling me exactly what happened, and what led up to it."
"Ok," Batman said. "Now lets get down to Arkam before the villains decide we aren't coming" They both ran for the vehicles. Batgirl hopped on her Batcycle, and Batman climbed into the Batmobile. Moments later they were on their way to Arkam.
On the way Batman told Batgirl his plan. " These two groups are obviously a distraction for this center group," Batman pointed out.
"So we both concentrate on the center group, right?"
"No. We split up. You take this side group, and I'll take this other side group. "
"But isn't that falling for their trap, and going after the distractions?" Batgirl asked.
"Normally it would, but they don't know that Robin isn't here. The distractions would be to keep you busy, so that I would take the larger group. They most likely expected to trap me somehow," Batman explained. "With Robin not here, we take the distractions down, because together they have more escapee's than the main group. After we take out the distractions, we'll converge on the center point. A large group would have a harder time disappearing,"
"That way, even if they escape they never really fulfilled their objective, and are more likely to show themselves to try again!" Batgirl said catching on.
"Good luck" Batman said as they separated, to deal with the distractions. As Batgirl arrived at her side, she decided that distraction wasn't the correct term. Mr. Freeze and his henchmen were pouring out of Arkam. At a closer look Batgirl realized something. They weren't running out, they were running in. She quickly snuck around to the back, and threw a batarang into the back of Mr. Freeze's head, cracking the glass.
He swiveled around, his ice canon immediately trained on her. The ice caught her feet as she was gliding down at him. Batgirl smashed her now ice encased feet into Mr. Freeze's head cover. The ice shattered, along with the glass. One punch to his now exposed face knocked him out. As he fell backwards an explosion was heard inside. Mr. Freeze's goons ran out with what looked like Bane's venom pack, but last she had checked Bane was still on the loose. In fact, just earlier that day she had been on patrol to try and find him.
Some of the goons finally ran at her and Batgirl let loose a barrage of batarangs. A few of then went down, but most of them kept coming. She engaged in physical combat. Arms seemed to fly everywhere, and Batgirl kept dodging, occasionally kicking, or punching a goon. When the numbers dropped down to better odds, she went fully offensive. They were down in an instant. Then Batgirl heard the cock of guns, and stopped. There were about 5 of Freeze's lackeys left, and every single one had a gun. Batgirl guessed they had just run out of the building, or else they would have already shot her. She quickly dropped a smoke bomb from her utility belt, and back-hand-springed into the trees behind her. They opened fire, but luckily every shot missed. Silently, Batgirl used the tree's as cover, snuck up on one of the gunners, and took him down. After repeating this twice more, Batgirl threw a batarang, knocking the gun out of the last goon's hands. She attacked just as he turned, receiving a kick to the face for his efforts. "Hold it right there," a voice from behind her said.
"I knew I missed something," Batgirl said to herself, as she turned around. There was a gun pointed directly at her face, only a few inches away. Thinking on her feet, Batgirl suddenly collapsed. As the gun swiveled down to aim at her, her feet flew up, smashed the gun from the goon's hands, and, using her hands, Batgirl pushed off the ground to kick him in the face.
It was fitting that Batman chose this time to call her. "You finished up over there?" he asked.
"Yup, just finished," she replied. Batgirl swiveled when she heard a noise behind her. Bane was standing there, hooking up his venom tank to him. He visibly grew in size. " Um… make that almost done," Batgirl said, ending the communication. She would need all of her concentration to win this fight.
"It must be my lucky day," Bane said. "I get to break the Bird, and then the Bat." Bane ran at her, punching. Batgirl dodged, and threw a few batarangs. They bounced harmlessly off of his back, and Bane charged again. Barbara dodged, and ran towards the trees. As Bane charged again, she jumped off of the tree, fanned out her cape, and glided over Bane's head. Bane crashed into a tree, and a batarang from behind hit his venom tube. It wavered, but didn't break.
"Rats," Barbara muttered under her breath. Bane turned again, and ran. This time, Batgirl dodged, and he tripped over her foot. She jumped on him, drew out a batarang, and was about to cut the tube when Bane's fist smacked her in the face. Barbara was knocked off of Bane, and about a foot away. Bane jumped to his feet, and tried to punch her on the ground. Barbara rolled, dodging it, immediately rolling the other way to dodge another punch. Bane raised his hands to smash down on her with both. This gave Barbara enough time to pull out Dick's latest toy.
The batarang shot into Bane's fist, and exploded into a self-hardening foam. Batgirl smiled as the foam encased Bane's arm up to his elbows. She tucked her legs in, and somersaulted in-between Bane's legs. She smashed into Bane's back, and he fell forward. A batarang shot from the trees, and snapped Bane's venom tube. Batman was finally here.
It took about a minute for the two to hand cuff Mr. Freeze and Bane, and a minute more for the police to arrive. Batman had taken down Penguin, Catwoman, Man Bat, Firefly, and Killer Croc. But the other group had successfully escaped. With mixed results they headed back to the Batcave. Once there Barbara reminded Bruce that he had promised to tell her what had happened to Dick. "Well" he began. " During training I noticed that he was only using his right arm, and avoiding hand to hand combat whenever possible. It also seemed like he was in a rush. Instead of defeating his opponents, he would just trip them. I noticed this, and decided to spar with him. Even from the start I could tell he was off his game, so I slowed down to stay with him. I got one good hit in, hit his shoulder and his defense dropped completely. He seemed to fall forward, but he actually flipped up and kicked me. I wasn't sure if he was ok, but he was determined. I didn't want to hurt him, so I let him win. It was the quickest way to talk to him and have him listen without injuring him further. He walked off, and when I found him he was unconscious." Bruce finished.
"Oh.. well we should really go see how he's doing," Barbara said, as she walked toward the exit of the Batcave that led to Wayne Manor