"I can't believe my dad is actually Batman. Phhh more like Robocop" Batgirl said perched atop a roof in the narrows.
"I vote for RoboBat" Frankie said into the comm-link.
Batgirl sighed into the comm and sat down on the ledge with her legs dangling over the edge. It was an above average night in Gotham, bitter cold but completely clear skies. Despite being like hell most of the time, the nights it was clear, gave you a most breathtaking views of the city.
"What the heck am I going to do Frankie? I mean, why wouldn't he just let someone else do it?"
"Says the vigilante" Frankie mused.
"You're not helping."
"Na uh eh. Actually before you found out there would be a new sheriff in town you've caught 200% more criminals in the past month than you did the month before."
"I stand corrected."
"The original Batman really had you all under his thumb. I can't believe he actually tracked your performance."
"Being hooked into the Bat computer, if you are really good I'm sure you'll find out much more than that."
"Give it a few days, I'm reading this Grayson guys' bio right now. Sure is a long one."
"Stop!"
"Come-on Babes if you want me to actually help you I should know these things."
"You don't need to know that history…" Batgirl pulled out her wrist computer and typed in a series of commands quickly.
Immediately Frankie's screen went dark.
"Barbara?"
*Silence*
"Barbara Gordon?"
Her screen was brought back up on a new page. This one had the bio of a local drug lord who had recently switched to importing weapons.
"Are you done Frankie?"
"Sure… Head four blocks north and two blocks west. You're going to the docks. Our guy is there."
"Thanks O"
A few minutes later Batgirl arrived on a roof overlooking an old Gotham dock. This particular dock was on the bad— worse side of Gotham. This one folded up years ago and has been a hub for criminal activity since. The cops in the area aren't nearly stupid enough to lock this down. Drugs and weapons have poured through this gap in the coverage for years. There was a time when a few brash cops took out the trash out for what seemed like for good, but for these sorts of crimes it has always been "cut off the head of the snake and two more take its place." Fights and missions like these really made Batgirl question whether or not jumping off rooftops and punching criminals in the face is the way to go.
"Alright so you have 6 bad guys in the loading area, out of your immediate sight. There is one inept patrol, and 2 guarding the entrance. You really shouldn't have a problem taking these guys out quietly."
"Thanks Frankie, are you uploading their— "
"Already done. I have added their cell phone locators to the map now"
"Alright going in"
Batgirl swooped down to the rooftop nearest the entrance guards. From there she sprung into action. Jumping down and drop kicking one guard knocking him out cold and before the other could even get a hand on his weapon, she delivered an epic round house to his face. She crouched down surveying the area for any other guards.
"Nice kick, the patrol should reach you in about 20 seconds."
Batgirl quickly zip tied the bad guys hands and feet together.
All the sudden she heard it… Sounds like nails on concrete…
"Crap." Batgirl's eyes went wide.
*WOOF* *WOOF* *WOOF*
Freaking dogs! Unfortunately for bats, dogs don't really have cell phones making them much more difficult to track. However, if you aren't seemingly distracted and sloppy they are fairly easy to manage.
"THERE'S A BAT OVER HERE!" The inept guard yelled.
One unnecessarily long fight later Batgirl certainly took a beating. She reached down to pull the bad guys' arms around his back to tie them up.
"Arghhhh," she exclaimed immediately clutching her right shoulder from a bad slam through one of the dense wooden crates. Luckily for her she still had a hard left hook and instilled it thoroughly on the perp's face.
"ughmmm," clutching at her lower back now. This pain was brought to her by one brave soul that took a two by four to it. Luckily she rolled under a row of shelves sprung up (through the immense pain) launching herself and some well placed batarangs to their face. One dropkick later and it was naptime for this one.
Batgirl went around tying each one thoroughly, not taking any more chances. She may have been distracted and sloppy but these guys certainly seemed at least above average crooks.
After that she went to work looking for whatever it was these guys were bringing in. She pried open one of the crates to find nothing but bricks and bricks of drugs.
Guys like these are scum – she thought to herself. Thinking about the lives that are damaged from this crap she could only hope these guys would be gone for a while. She was just about to leave when she spotted it out of the corner of her eye. It was new and had a fancy electronic lock on the case. Whatever this one was it had 'special' written all over it.
Batgirl pulled out her electronic hacking device typed in several commands and let it do its thing. A few beeps later and -
"Open sesame," she stated.
"What do we have here Oracle?"
"Running the trace through the computer now"
…
"Um it says it's not found…
Did I do that right?"
"Try it again"
"Ugh" one of the restrained is starting to come to.
"Still not found"
"What the— did you run it through the other bat computer?"
"Trying that now… It's going to take a minute."
"In the mean time- HEY!" *Smacks the crook in the face.* "I'm going to ask nicely, what is this stuff, where did you get it from?"
"Do you think I am afraid of you? Baby-bat?" the grizzly man said in a heavy eastern European accent.
*Wham* *wham* a few quick fists to the face is leaving him spitting blood.
"Ha ha. Really? No one here is afraid of you we know your group doesn't kill. Even then, we are not afraid of death."
"You can't just keep beating these people senseless Batman. They were already restrained what you did was unnecessary."
Robin's voice echoed in her mind. It was from one of their first missions out as a team. Robin was clearly not a fan of seemingly torturing criminals. More and more Robin would express his disdain for Batman's torture tactics. Batgirl was conflicted; on the one hand it made getting information much quicker. On the other hand, some of them really didn't deserve what happened to them. It was almost sad sometimes these people were just trying to make ends meet any way they could. Other times though…
She took his hand and started to twist it in a very unnatural way… Too much torque and it would snap like a twig. But she had a good idea how much that would take and most people couldn't stand getting close to that point. But, this one didn't make a sound.
"Batgirl!" Oracle said into her communicator.
But Barbara was in the zone. There was a part of her that was tired of scum like this not taking her seriously. These sorts of things happened frequently when she started. Until, word got around that she wasn't to be messed with. That though put a whole different target on her chest however…
"Batgirl! Stop! What are you doing?" Oracle pleaded.
Slowly she released his hand.
"I knew you wouldn't do it. You can't stop us. The day of reckoning is coming for you all," he said eerily.
Batgirl turned towards him again, *BAM* swiftly she put a big boot mark right across his face knocking him back down unconscious.
"Yeah, yeah, it always is. Oracle do you have something?"
"Sort of… it is apparently alien."
"What, Where?"
"Not from around here but there are traces of Kryptonite."
Batgirl could hear the sirens in the distance now. The GCPD should handle it from here. She reached for her grapple gun and fired it towards the sky and flew off.
"Over the course of the missions since we started this thing together Grayson," Helena started plainly, "every one you have been on there have been spies monitoring our activities. Those spies have been winding up dead. Every one with blunt force trauma with a weapon very similar to your escrima sticks you carry with you on all of your missions."
Helena leaned back in her new office chair. The one she inherited from their insane former boss, old 'what's his name.'
"Upon discovering this during your last mission out I came to the conclusion that the prime candidate was Agent 1, Tiger. He was one of the few that knew of each and every one of our missions."
"But someone is still dead?" Dick asked knowingly.
"Correct," Helena pressed a few commands on the keyboard in her desk and security footage on the TV's behind her appeared to show an incapacitated Agent 1, and Agent 37 crawling out the ventilation ducts from which he came. "According to the security camera's tiger was on the floor where you left him. When as you see an escrima stick striking him perfectly in the temple killing him instantly."
"So, if it's not Tiger… I am assuming since you're telling me all this"
"In other news, the Fist of Cain appears to be on the rise. They have shifted their stance to targeting and eliminating all meta-humans. They have appear to be behind an attack on a large group of civilian metas, whatever substance they used, when inhaled by metas it targets whatever controls their powers and kills it so they can no longer control their powers and end up consumed by them."
Behind her gruesome pictures of meta-humans destroyed by their powers appeared. One young boy appeared to be so small and frail his high metabolism appeared to eat him alive. Another with the powers to control fire… there was almost nothing left of him.
"Your mission is to get Agent 1 back. We can't afford to let another agency snatch him up. Then we shift our focus back on this would be assassin."