Raven had to admit, Greece was a very beautiful country this time of year. The sea breeze made her hair dance and lightened even her usually dark spirits. With her magical training, she could feel the majesty and power in this ancient land, especially among these ruins, where the Justice League's shuttle supposedly landed.
"You know how many laws we're breaking by coming here, Rob?" Cyborg complained as he gingerly made his way through the rubble, careful not to damage anything of historical significance. "If anyone finds out we were here, we're going to have every archaeology school all over us."
"So watch where you step," the young detective retorted crisply, his attention entirely on the shuttle before them. There were no signs of external damage on the ship's hull. But inside the cockpit, Robin's trained eyesight noted the subtle indications of a struggle. He pointed to the crash belts. "They're stretched," he said. "One of them is actually torn. Someone cut the League members out. Here, along the edge of the cockpit—bloodstains. Probably from where their skin scraped across the metal. More blood on the seats; they were already wounded when they got here."
"So they were beaten up on the fortress, fled here, and were still captured," Raven summarized. "But if they were fighting up in space and still got captured, that means our enemy has friends."
"Well, isn't that nice?" Beast Boy grumbled. One mastermind was bad enough; now he had help.
Robin went through the cockpit with a fine-toothed comb. "Nothing," he muttered in frustration, pounding his fist on the hull. Dust flew up into the air from his glove. He looked at the cloud in surprise and then opened his hand. It was covered in a fine layer of gray ash.
He tapped a button on the side of his mask and a pair of red lenses slid over his eyes. The readouts on his HUD brought up an unusual composition of chemicals. But Robin recognized it at once. He had seen them before. "Lazarus residues," he breathed.
He saw the others' confused looks and said, "Lazarus pools are special pools that can rejuvenate the human body. They are said to be able to restore the dead to life. They leave a distinctive ash-like residue and can drive those who bathe in the pools to temporary insanity. There's only one man Batman and I have ever faced who knew the secrets of the Lazarus pools: Ra's Al Ghul, a mastermind who's centuries old, courtesy of the pools.
"A few years ago, he kidnapped me to draw Batman into the Middle East, where he was waiting by a Lazarus pool. He left behind clues and traps, pushing Batman's skills to the limit. But it turned out to be an elaborate method of testing Batman's worthiness. What Ra's Al Ghul wanted was a suitable successor to take up his shadow empire and to marry his only daughter—he picked Batman."
"And you think Ra's Al Ghul is behind this whole…purloined superhero plot?" Raven asked. "But if he initially chose Batman, why would he be sending us these clues?"
Robin shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know why he'd want to capture the other Justice League heroes, either. The only one he'd even want is Batman. But there's only thing I've learned about Al Ghul—never underestimate him. If we think we're one step ahead of him, he's actually ten ahead of us. We're talking about a genius who's survived for generations, someone who makes Slade look like a cakewalk."
Robin shivered. Ra's Al Ghul—a mastermind's mastermind. As challenging as the Joker, as villainous as Slade, and as powerful as Batman. If Al Ghul was the one behind this whole mess, then it was no wonder that he defeated the entire Justice League. The League would have been beaten days before they were even attacked—that was how good Al Ghul was, how thorough his schemes were. Robin seriously doubted his ability to solve this mystery if Al Ghul was behind it.
He felt Raven's hand squeeze his shoulder, a gesture of support, though her dark eyes hid any such emotion. Good old Raven. Robin furrowed his brow, his resolve reaffirmed. Ra's Al Ghul was one of the best, the Boy Wonder conceded, but he could be beaten—Batman did it. So could he.
Again, Robin thought back on all the clues they had found, searching for anything that could give him a new insight. The two notes with Poe references linked to Greece; residues of Batman's C4 derivative; the Kryptonite ring, the Lazarus pool ashes. Most of those clues looked like they were left there on purpose. The only two that didn't fit that description were the C4 residues and the ashes. That puzzled him something fierce.
Robin thought about how he initially thought that James Gordon was supposed to be the Prefect of Paris—Robin amended that notion to himself being the Prefect, the investigator who saw things through a Procrustean bed. If he kept acting like the Prefect, then he wouldn't be able to solve the mystery. So what clue did he have that could break the cycle?
Notes, residues, the ring, ashes.
And then Robin saw it. He smiled. It was there, right there. In plain sight, just like the story. "The Lazarus ashes are a clear indication that we should go to the Middle East, where Al Ghul was last seen with a pool. But the Lazarus pools are pools," he said aloud. "And after taking a dip in a pool, what do you do? Dry off. Any ashes from the pool would've been removed before coming out here to Greece. So why would there be ashes here on the shuttle?"
Robin stood up, smiling triumphantly. "Easy—because it's where the Justice League heroes are. It's like in the story. The thief had disguised the purloined letter as a crumpled and dirty letter. But the detective noticed that the dirty letter was inconsistent with the thief's otherwise clean and meticulous habits. The disguised purloined letter—hidden in plain sight, but in such a way that it wouldn't draw attention—was incongruous with the thief's personality. That was the hint, the key to the entire puzzle."
Robin patted the ashes off his gloves. "And the same thing with the ashes. The Lazarus pools are Al Ghul's most prized secrets. He wouldn't tell anyone to go there in a million years. It isn't his style. He put those ashes there to deter us from where the Justice League really is—right here, in these ruins. Just like how disguising the letter was supposed to turn people away from where it really was—right on the desk."
Confident that he had solved the mystery, Robin sent the other Titans on a fanning search. It took several hours, but they found the missing superheroes. Sure enough, they were in the ruins: buried in the catacombs beneath a crumbling temple. There they lay, the World's Finest, battered and unconscious. The Titans undid their bindings and helped them to wakefulness.
"Robin," Batman murmured wearily. "I wasn't expecting help…this soon at any rate." The Dark Knight smiled. "Good job."
"Thanks," the young detective said. "Come on, let's get all of you out of here. We got to move before Ra's…" Robin stopped, seeing Batman's eyes narrow. "He's behind me, isn't he?" Robin grumbled.
There was applause. The Titans stood and turned to face their adversary. Ra's Al Ghul had come.