Above the city, the Batwing silently roared through the sky. Red Robin had put it on autopilot, while he looked at blueprints of the building he was about to enter. Next to the blueprints, he had documents of what additions had been made to the building. Among the changes was an escape tunnel that lead into what Red Robin assumed was the office, on the first floor.
It's where the boss would be, most of the time.
The immediate plan was to sneak in, via the escape tunnel, since Red Robin would then avoid any henchmen between him and Sionis. A sleeping gas grenade should do the trick of incapacitating the shot-caller and allow Red Robin to exfiltrate him to the Batwing without much fuss.
Batman always had spares of most equipment in his vehicles, among which was a breathing apparatus, that Red Robin figured would be useful, since knocking himself out with the sleeping gas wasn't the smartest move.
When he came near the Maroni Mansion, he engaged the Batwing's survey mode, where it circled a target and took a series of infrared photos. Based on the heatmaps, Red Robin counted six people in total, one in the office room, two standing guard outside.
The Batwing hovered above a corner of the mansion, and Red Robin got wired down to the ground. The wire went back up, and the Batwing went back into survey mode and circled the mansion, until instructed otherwise.
Red Robin found the hatch to the escape tunnel behind a tree near the mansion. When he dropped down, he needed to crawl to get further, but it was more spacious than the Batcave's escape tunnel. Not long after crawling he got to an area where he could stand, but the light was sparse, so it was difficult to properly see the surroundings. With a flashlight, he noted saw how big this room was. That had to be the basement. That wasn't part of the schematics. A line on the floor showed that a wall had once been here, separating the escape tunnel and basement, but now they were one.
Within the escape tunnel's original space, there was a ladder leading up to the first floor, simply passing the ground level of the house.
At the top of the ladder, a light came through at the floor. The door to the office, Red Robin thought. But since it was this big, and probably disguised as a bookshelf on the other side, it would be difficult to open it and deploy the grenade as planned, without giving himself away. Change of plans!
From a pocket in his belt, Red Robin got a flashlight out and looked at where he was, looking for another way in. Despite how small and seemingly unused this passage was, the air wasn't stuffed, so some ventilation was bound to be here.
Looking above him, he saw the vent and it was big enough for a person to crawl through, but reaching it would be the first challenge. Putting his back against the opposite wall and his feet on the wall in front of him, Red Robin started walking up the wall, until he could reach the vent and remove the grill. The grill was removed with a small screwdriver, which revealed the ventilation shaft as made of metal. That was going to create a ruckus, if Red Robin crawled through that.
With the grill in hand, he jumped down, went down the ladder and looked around the basement for something to aid him. Circuit breakers, where are you?
They were on a pillar in the middle of the basement. Opening the cover to the breakers, he knew what to do, but if he simply turned them off now, he wouldn't have enough time to get up the ladders, before somebody came down here.
He was never fond of using it, but explosive clay was the only option, right now. Small clumps put on a few of the breakers. If all of them went, the people above would be more alarmed. The previous owner had been so kind to label the breakers, and Red Robin left the ones for the kitchen and living room without clay.
With clumps of this size, none of them should be more potent than a firecracker, which would suffice for this. Primers were put in each of them and connected to a wireless receiver. Red Robin closed the cover and went back up the ladder. He climbed into the ventilation shaft and started to slowly crawl across, being very aware of his movement speed.
Further up ahead, he came to another grill with a view into the office. Looking to the side, he confirmed that the escape door was indeed disguised as a bookshelf.
Somebody was sitting in the chair looking out the big windows behind him. Below Red Robin, the door opened and a woman and a man walked in.
"Sir, here's who you requested." The woman said as her boss in the chair turned around, revealing a full-face mask, resembling a skull. Roman Sionis.
"Thank you, Lisa." He said. Lisa? Lisa Maroni?! Why's she in this?
"Now, do you understand you mission?" Sionis continued, to which the man in the room nodded.
"Find a lone Bertinelli and bring him to along to a Falcone shootout." The man said.
"Exactly. And if he doesn't play nice, just shoot him and drag him there." Sionis said, stood up and walked over to the man. "What you really need to accomplish is making sure the Falcones see the Bertinelli body."
"Yes sir!" The man said and walked out the room.
Red Robin used his wrist computer to send a message to Batman. Whoever that guy was, and wherever he was going, he needed to be stopped, but Red Robin wasn't equipped for taking down what was probably going to be moving in a car.
After a short moment, and no one else had entered the room, Red Robin put his plan into motion by getting his remote out. Took a deep breath and pressed the button, giving off a minor click sound. Because the charges were so small, he couldn't hear them going off, even though he was, basically, in the same room, by extension.
Red Robin heard murmurs below from the others in the house trying to figure out what happened. Sionis, however, was staring directly at the grill where Red Robin was.
A guy burst into the room. "Sir, are you alright?"
"Yeah yeah, what's the fuzz?"
"The lights went out on the entire floor below."
"Then go turn it on again. And don't bother me with such trivial stuff again!"
"Y-Yes sir!" The man said and left the room again.
When the guy's loud steps couldn't be heard anymore, Sionis looked back up to the grill.
"You can come out now. Or do I have to shoot the wall around you?"
This didn't exactly go as planned.
Red Robin removed the grill and placed it on the top of a bookshelf to his right and jumped down.
"Roman Sionis."
"The one and only. Although, it's Black Mask, now."
"Started as the outsider for Maroni, as their interrogator, and now you sit in the big chair."
"That I do."
Despite Black Mask's order to the other guy, Red Robin went and locked the door, to prevent anyone getting in here, and making it more difficult than it needed to be.
"You must be the new guy, that messed up my plan earlier. I'm a briefcase short, you know." Black Mask said. "And I take it, you're also the one who turned off the lights here?"
So, the cases were connected after all.
Red Robin briefly caught a glimpse of a gun holster under Black Mask's right arm. On the back of his belt, he found two small discs, that acted as his Batarangs.
"Why'd you send him away, if you knew I was up there?"
"Like I said, I'm a briefcase short." Black Mask said and pulled a gun from under his right arm. "And I need to take it out on someone." Red Robin threw one of the discs at the gun, hit it and knocked it out of Black Mask's hand.
"So, you might be new, but this isn't your first rodeo. Who are you?"
"It's Red Robin."
"Red Robin?" Black Mask said and pondered for a moment. He walked back and forth for a moment. "That explains why Batman have been solo for some time now. You left. Shouldn't there be new one, then?"
Red Robin didn't say anything, trying not to reveal too much, even though it sounded like Black Mask knew plenty, already.
"Oh, well. No matter." Black Mask said. "No need to worry about future Robins, when I got one, right here."
Black Mask was both taller and bulkier than Red Robin, who figured he needed to use his staff this time. When Black Mask went for a gun under his left arm, Red Robin threw his other disc and hit the gun, once again. While Black Mask recoiled, Red Robin went for each piece in the sides of his boots. The staff was assembled in one swift motion.
"So, you disrupt my plans, take what I've worked hard to get." Black Mask said. "And, now you sneak around my house and play games." He took his jacket off, and threw it on his desk.
"Very well, Double-R-Seven," He said, while getting into a fighting stance. "let's dance!"