Anakin leaned back, fingers steepled as he considered the glowing screen in front of him. Human trafficking. Slavery.

An emergency? Yes, yes certainly and Robin said they needed him, he'd said so… wasn't there anyone else? Should they have to ask anyone else if he was the best chance for those poor people?

Whispering reservations and suffocating doubt said yes, but a lighter, stronger part of Anakin called no. He couldn't just leave people to... crippling humiliation and pain and even death when he could… this was personal. He knew what was happening to them, knew it in a way that stabbed into his heart and showed him their fates as surely as if they were suffering and dying in front of him.

So here he was. Alone. Undercover. A psychopath with a laser sword and crippling self-doubt, feeling not a bit closer to 'saving the universe' than he had been when he'd first woken up and was greeted by a cloud smeared sky.

Where does he go from here?

Anakin turned his attention back to the video staring him in the face. He hit replay; dragged the video past the briefing till it began to restate his mission. Anakin leaned forward intently as the mechanical voice began again.

"You do not need to bring down their entire operation. All we need is that you get the lay of their operation and retrieve at least one of their victims. We know that there is a specific group who has been moved to at least 5 separate locations, and, by interrogating them, we hope to be able to bring them all down at once. You will be looking for someone with a bracelet like the one shown-" the screen flashed as a red bracelet spun around the screen.

"And you will extract them as subtly as possible. Immediately bring them to this location-" again, the screen displayed a map of Gotham with a flashing location pin, "and signal with your communicator as soon as you are out of their facility."

Anakin hit pause, and ran a robotic hand through his hair. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and let out a quiet huff of breath. "May the force be with me."

The corridors were dim, and the air was stale with stagnant dust and suffering. Anakin pulled shields tightly around himself to block out the overwhelming misery and terror emanating from every direction. His backpack was an invisible weight on his shoulders, stocked with only the barest of preparations. He ducked against a wall as a presence started moving toward him with confident, solid steps. A guard, probably. A force suggestion lifted itself from Anakin's core and settled over the suggestable mind, forcing the guard to ignore Anakin's presence completely.

Anakin moved forward again, taking careful note of the crooks in the hallways he'd studied so carefully on the rough map he'd been given, the blanks being filled in by intuition and the force. He was nearly there, now, the cameras little trouble when he could nudge them in the other direction.

All whoever was at the monitor would see was the camera glitching; holding to one side for a smidge too long before continuing it's rounds.

Anakin turned another corridor, grinning. Sometimes even that wasn't necessary. Sometimes, simple timed running could get you past the rotating cameras without detection.

Still, though. It was going to be hard to make it back out with a passenger in tow. Anakin closed his eyes and reached, reached into holding cells and brushed against minds of guards, searching and gleaning for specific shimmers of information.

There. A weak minded guard, staring, staring at… Anakin squeezed his eyes closed, and focused. Yes. A red bracelet. Perfect. And now to find the right person to extract.

"What are they like?" Anakin whispered, pushing just a little bit. He was doing so much, using so much, but he couldn't help it. These people, he was here and he needed to help them. He couldn't help helping them.

What were they like... A girl. Timid, scared. Sometimes she didn't talk for days. No, not her. A boy, constantly begging to be set free. He cried for hours, and didn't even notice when he was beaten into the ground. Not him. Another girl, a fighter, constantly attacking anyone who came near her without thought or restraint. He couldn't take her.

A boy. Older teenager or young adult. He'd tried to escape 4 times, and those were just the times the guard knew of. He stayed calm and collected, even in the face of punishment. He wouldn't stop giving food to the children. The Force sang it's approval. Him. Anakin would take him.

Now for the part where he would extract someone without attracting any undue attention… Anakin pounced on the guard's mind, slipping in to separate the man from his control.

Bring him out. Take him outside. Down the hallway. A left, a left and a right. Nownownownow.

The guard stuttered and jerked and moved, pulling forward on the strings Anakin had attached to his person-puppet. Anakin felt remorse and fear pool in his stomach at what he was doing, but it was pointless to feel and he ignored it.

Anakin stayed slouched by the wall, until the guard walked up with his prisoner in tow. A solid blow to the head, and the guard went down against the wall. It felt strange not to kill him, but Anakin didn't have anything close to the legal rights to kill on this world, so live he would. Besides, it was one of the stipulations listed in the briefing, not to kill for any reason.

The boy looked up at him. His pale, almost yellow face topped by blond hair held a pair of inquisitive brown eyes that peered at his newfound rescuer.

"Who're you?"

"Anakin. You?"

"Titus."

"Right. Well, Titus, I'm with the bats. Are you ready to make an exit and bring this place down?"

Titus's eyes widened and he gave a firm nod. "There's nothing I'd like better. There's others here too, though, kids…"

"We'll come back for them. We need to get you out so you can give us information on this and your previous holding facilities. Can you do that, Titus?"

Titus frowned, but nodded slowly. "Anything."

Anakin gave his best reassuring grin. "Good. Now we need to move like the tinnies themselves are on our trails."

Titus frowned in confusion, and Anakin could've punched himself in the face for being so dense. Hopefully Titus wouldn't think too much of that.

"Follow me." Anakin leapt forward, Titus shadowing right on his heels. Anakin reached out to shove the camera into position, forced to hold it longer to accommodate two people racing along under it.

They were going to notice. Someone was going to find the unconscious guard, or someone was going to notice the increasingly obvious tampering with the cameras, and the alarms were going to go straight off.

And then they did.

Alarms blared through the hallways, in soul-piercing shrieks that never failed to set Anakin on fire with fear and mindless ecstasy. Anakin tossed his head and laughed because it had been so long and Titus looked at him like he was crazy and maybe he was but he was crazy and alive.

Guards trickling into the hallway were met with force shoves that sent them flying back and Titus's eyes flying open in equal measure. Anakin set the force behind them, shoving them forward into a leaping race that Anakin slipped into like a second skin and that had Titus stumbling and struggling for balance.

Titus struck his arms out to the sides, and sank into force running like he was born to do it. Anakin laughed, and this time Titus joined him.

Suddenly, Anakin came to a sudden, screeching halt, as they came up against the locked metal door. No. Anakin had been hoping against hope that they wouldn't be able to do… that. He'd known it was possible, but he'd hoped the old and rusting equipment wouldn't be able to force a lockdown like this…

Out whipped the lightsaber, illuminating Titus's awed face in blue energy, but before Anakin could start the plunge into the metallic door, the popping of gunfire echoed in his ears.

Anakin spun to melt the bullets into slag, whirling to catch them all, as guard after guard entered the room, and… this was bad.

Bullets were worse than blaster bolts. Blasters were bigger, and could be reflected back at your enemy. Bullets were near invisible, and melted and evaporated uselessly. Anakin slipped into the force, sensing every bullet before it made it's mark, becoming a blur of motion.

But as long as he was here, he couldn't hotwire that door open, and with the eternal wellspring of guards, it was only a matter of time.

Titus's presence burned behind him, before the boy moved forward to stand behind Anakin. "Let me! I've spent years fencing; I can do this!"

Anakin wanted to laugh, wanted to tell him that that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, but when he touched Titus with the force, strange things happened.

Perhaps Titus couldn't hold them off alone, but if Anakin were to… guide him with the force, maybe, combining Titus's skill with the Force boosting his reflexes and instincts… Anakin didn't have a better plan, and besides. This felt right.

Anakin nodded and spun out, slipping the metal hilt into Titus's waiting hands and seamlessly moving to use his metal hand to tear into the wires beside the automatic door.

Titus was a blazing presence in the force behind him, light dancing off the dim walls as Titus illuminated the corridor with righteous protection.

Anakin grabbed and twisted and reattached wires, and the door gave a dissatisfied screech and opened. Anakin grabbed his lightsaber back from Titus, and backed out of the hallway with Titus running before him until Anakin was able to yank the door back closed.

"Run!"

Titus didn't need to be told, and they burst into the night, cold air raising goosebumps and sending hair on end, as Anakin reached for his communicator.

"We're clear! Repeat, we are clear!"

There was no response, as Anakin had been told not to expect one.

"Follow me!" Anakin yelled, taking the lead again, as he threw glances over his shoulder, knowing that at any moment armed men would come pouring out of their hive like so many enraged bees.

In the openness of the city, with the presences of people scattered all around them, with the ability of the enemy to flank them like this… Anakin wasn't sure he and Titus could escape.

Right on schedule, the sound of pounding feet ricocheted off the buildings as the furious men thundered after them. Rubber squealed as motorcycles and cars tore after them. Titus gasped, fear tainting his presence.

Anakin could only stare desperately ahead, and grip his lightsaber, hoping against hope that the bats had some sort of back-up in mind. Contrary to the preference of the briefing, his exit had been anything but subtle.

There was a roaring that grew ever louder as it tore toward them from the opposite direction of the facility. Anakin frowned, unable to sense any living being coming from the sound.

And then it burst on them. Black as night and capable of an unliving fury that only one vehicle on any world could be capable of. The Batmobile. Anakin laughed again, because of course Batman would be prepared.

The car screamed past them, making a beeline for their pursuers, and Anakin grabbed Titus to pull him down an alley, tossing him an oversized hoodie from his backpack and pulling them out of view as screams started to echo from their once-pursuers.

"It's in here." Anakin glanced furtively down the street before leading Titus to the warehouse. "This is where I'm supposed to drop you off."

Anakin sighed, eyeing the warehouse door, letting his shoulder's drop in relief, his guard falling.

"What are you doing?!"

Anakin gasped and whirled to shove his lightsaber in the face of... Ulises.

"What are you doing here?"

"Can we go inside, please?" Titus begged, hunched over, still hiding his face in the hoodie. "Please?"

"Right, um, yeah, don't worry, this is just…" Anakin switched off his lightsaber. "This is my friend, he's, uh… he's good don't worry."

Titus nodded anxiously as Anakin used the lockpick in his finger to open the lock. At this point, there was just no reason to keep the arm a secret.

While Ulises's eyes were doing impressions of silver dollars, Titus pushed into the warehouse, still hunched over.

Ulises trailed after, and Anakin shoved the door shut again. Titus gasped deeply and pushed the hoodie off his head. Anakin found a lamp, undoubtedly left there by a Bat, and switched it on.

"Okay, I know you probably have a lot of questions, Ulises, and I know the first one is probably-"

"Titus, is that you?"

Titus jerked, and took a closer look at Ulises.

"Ulises? You're here? I don't… I don't believe it!" Titus gave a gasp and moved toward Ulises, trembling. "You're here!"

Ulises reached out to crush Titus in a hug, squeezing the smaller boy against his chest. "I can't believe it! I didn't think we were ever going to see you again!"

"O-kay," Anakin began, "now I'm the one with questions. How do you know each other?"

"We had a fencing class together," Ulises offered, letting Titus rest against his chest. "He got to be really good friends with Cole and I. But one day he disappeared and…" Ulises looked down on Titus who squeezed his eyes shut instead of offering information.

"Buddy? You good?" Ulises ran a calming hand over Titus back, as a hitch jerked the blond's shoulders.

Titus nodded emphatically, before wiping the beginnings of tears onto Ulises's shirt.

"I w-went out by myself and I knew that I shouldn't but I did anyway… and they were there and… and I've just been back and forth ever since. I've just been getting shoved around to different places ever since…" Titus turned his watering eyes toward Ulises. "They couldn't break me."

"I know they couldn't, bud. I know."

Ulisses squeezed Titus one more time, before shaking his head helplessly. He grimaced, and turned toward Anakin. "You've got our side of the story. Now you've got a lot of explaining to do.