Beast Boy pounced, letting the inbred instincts of the Saber toothed tiger
take over. In mid leap, his body transformed into the magnificent big cat.
All five-hundred pounds of him careened into one of the would-be assassins,
sending him backwards with a pained whumph.
And then he got up, something that no regular human should have been able to do. Growling, Beast Boy charged again, this time, slicing at his opponent with his razor sharp claws. In this form, he was fast but somehow, his opponent was faster. He sidestepped Beast Boy just in time to avoid being opened up like a bag of potato chips.
Beast Boy was puzzled now. Somehow, he sensed that these five were different than their cohorts, whom the Titans had taken out with little difficulty just seconds before. Unfortunately, he never got to complete the thought. His animal hearing alerted him to the presence behind him, but he had no time to react to the heavy numchuck baton that came crashing down on his back. He tried to move, but couldn't. It was as if his legs simply weren't obeying his brain. His vision began to blur, and his thoughts slowed down as he staggered, looking for all the world like a drunken cat. A pressure point, the guy must have hit a nerve cluster or something, he thought, right before his world went dark.
Robin could only watch in astonishment as the remaining assassins defeated Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire. Raven and Beast Boy were already down, and an expert strike from Starfire's adversary connected with her head, making a terrible thwacking sound. Starfire had been in midair and she immediately dropped to the ground, stunned. More than stunned, actually. Her eyes glazed over and she soundlessly slumped to the ground, leaving Cyborg to fend off the other five. In a matter of seconds, he too was defeated.
There was indeed something different about these five. They fought much better than the others had, and Robin had serious doubts as to how long he withstand them. He turned to Kay. "Kay, get Takahashi out of here," He commanded authoritatively. The five remaining assassins were approaching.
"I can't," she yelled. "The only exits are at the front. I'd have to get past them first."
It was then that Robin noticed the wicked-looking handgun Kay held in a two- handed grip. It looked so out of place in the grip of such an innocent- looking girl.
"I can hold my own," she said.
Robin certainly hoped so. The five assassins had spread out so that they surrounded the podium, their numchucks spinning furiously. Two of them rushed on either side of Takahashi , converging towards Robin and Kay. Robin barely had time to get his bo-staff up before the baton end of the chained weapon came hurtling at him. Metal met metal with a solid clank, leaving Robin in a very advantageous position. He counterattacked, remembering once more the countless hours he'd spent under Batman's tutelage, training with his bo staff. While it may not have had the versatility of numchucks, it was certainly easier to strike with. He chose a five-blow combination, one of the earliest he'd learned. With the swiftness off a darting snake, he penetrated his attacker's defenses and landed five good blows, all strategically aimed at the weak spots in the human body; nerve clusters, pressure points, etc. The man dropped like a rock.
In his peripheral vision, he noticed another one of the dark figures, approaching him from the side. That trick might have worked on Beast Boy, but it wouldn't on him. Robin delivered a brutal side kick that doubled the man over and followed up with an equally ruthless uppercut that sent his head snapping back. The man tried desperately to put his hands up in a blocking position, but Robin's knockout kick crashed through anyway, knocking him clear off the platform.
He turned to Kay just in time to see her audibly break one of the assassin's shins. He howled in pain, the first sound Robin had heard any of them make since they'd arrived, but then Kay shut him up with a blow to the head from the butt of her gun.
That left one last assassin, and he did not hesitate to point what looked like a gun at the ceiling. Emphasis on looked like, for instead of a bullet, a long, black cable with a grappling hook at the end snaked upwards through the air until it found a steady hold on the outside rim of the broken skylight. He thumbed a button on the handgrip, and suddenly shot into the air, pulled up by the cable.
Robin observed this out of his peripheral vision, calculating his different options. He looked at Kay. "Nice job. Listen, I need you to see if you can revive the other Titans."
Kay frowned. She too could see the fleeing assassin escaping. He was almost to the skylight by now. "You're not going to chase him, are you."
"It won't take long," Robin promised. He turned to Takahashi. "You're sure you're not hurt?"
"I'm fine, but I agree with Kaila. You shouldn't-"
Robin had tuned him out now. He took out his own grappling hook and aimed carefully at the skylight. "Here goes," he muttered under his breath. The grappling hook imbedded itself on the roof outside and he let himself go, holding firmly to his grappler. The assassin above him looked down and pulled out his gun, firing two shots. Robin twisted his body in mid-air, swinging to the left and just barely avoiding being hit by the two rounds at point blank range. Kay was screaming down below that he was going to get himself killed, and he hoped she was wrong.
The fleeing assassin grabbed the rim of the skylight and hoisted himself over. He aimed the gun at Robin who was now holding on to the edge himself. He pulled the trigger.
Click
Robin grinned. "You're empty." He hoisted the rest of his body over the edge, savagely lashing out with his foot. He caught the underside of the assassin's jaw. Then a sharp pain exploded in his gut and he doubled over, the air in his body leaving him all at once.
The assassin didn't bother to hang around any longer, opting instead to run towards the edge of the building.
What is he thinking? Robin wondered as he struggled to his feet. They had to be the equivalent of a good four stories straight in the air. Nevertheless, he gave pursuit, noting that there were a lot of sirens now. It was about time.
The assassin reached the edge . . .and jumped, clearing the fifty or so feet that separated that rooftop from the next. It was an impossible feat, or at least it should have been.
Robin had been trained in the circus. He was in better than peak human shape and one of the best athletes in the world. However, even he couldn't jump a fifty-foot gap.
Or could he?
Robin kept running, except that when he hit the edge, he pulled out his bo staff, extended it, and used it like a pole vaulter's pole, planting it firmly into the roofing and using it to launch himself. He felt a wave of nausea just then as he flew through empty air high above the traffic below.
Then he landed on the adjacent roof, turning his fall into a somersault in order to dispel the force.
The chase began anew as Robin pounded after his quarry, running faster than even he would have thought possible. They cleared rooftop after rooftop at a dizzying pace as they made their way through Gotham City.
Robin finally brought the frantic pursuit to an end. After a half hour or so, he finally gained enough on the assassin that he was able to use one of his customized birdarangs.
It flew through the air with a sharp whistling sound, and the masked assassin turned around just in time to see a black and yellow blur suddenly explode in a massive tangle of black cables. The next thin he knew, he was on the rooftop looking up at Robin with strong black cables tying him from arms to feet. He couldn't move a muscle.
Robin approached slowly now that the guy was immobile. He knelt down. "Who are you?" Silence.
"I said," Robin repeated testily, putting pressure against the man's sternum with his bo staff, "who are you?"
"It doesn't matter," Said the man. His voice was a deep baritone, one that sounded almost sad.
"Why doesn't it matter?"
"Okay then, different question. "Who sent you?"
"Rupert. Rupert Thorne."
The name sounded familiar to Robin, but he couldn't place it. "Why'd he send you?"
Takahashi took something from him." The man coughed, so Robin eased the pressure somewhat. "Takahashi, he's got somethin'." He coughed. "Thorne wants it back."
"What?"
No answer. The man wasn't even looking at Robin anymore. He was focused on something else, something in the sky.
Robin froze and his blood turned to ice. The skin on the back of his neck prickled and as luck should have it, that was the exact moment when he heard a thwop-thwop-thwop sound approaching. His back was to it, but the downed assassin must have seen it all this time.
Robin ran without thinking, launching himself out of the way just in time so as not to be impaled by the hailstorm of bullets that came down with no warning. The sound was utterly deafening. The onslaught tore through the rooftop assassin like a piƱata. Whole chunks of gravel went cascading in every direction as lead pounded the rooftop. The assassin never stood a chance, and neither did Robin if he didn't do something quick.
He ran in a zigzag pattern, making himself a difficult target to acquire but one or two bullets hit him anyway. The reinforced Titanium alloy in his cape kept them from penetrating, but not from knocking Robin off his feet.
A beam of green energy suddenly pierced the dark sky, destroying the twin machine gun turret on the underbelly of the helicopter.
Starfire.
The Tamaranian girl fired two more starbolts, forcing the helicopter away from Robin. Thepilot, whoever he was had the good sense to pilot his craft away while he still could. Starfire didn't waste time trying to chase him down, instead she floated down to the rooftop, offering Robin a hand and helping him to his feet.
"Are you alright?" was the first thing she asked.
"Yeah, I think so. What abut you?" Robin could see now that Starfire sported a rather nasty purplish bruise on her left cheekbone.
"I am fine," said Starfire, putting an arm around Robin to help prop him up. She made the mistake of turning around in the direction of the assassin Robin had been interrogating just a few moments earlier, and her hand flew up to her mouth in shock.
"He didn't stand a chance," Robin said. He sighed, his head low. "Lets go back."
***
Robin had barely gotten through the door to the team condo when Kay leaped off the couch and hugged him fiercely, so tight that he was beginning to forget what breathing had felt like. When she finally let him go, she held him at arm's length. "What were you thinking?!" she half exclaimed, half demanded.
"I'm a superhero Kay, chasing down bad guys is what I do for a living."
"You almost got killed."
"Almost." Robin looked over at Starfire, who had distanced herself to the wall after Kay nearly squeezed him to death. "Thanks Star, by the way. You saved my life."
That got a smile out of her. "You have done the same for me many times."
Kay gave Starfire an obligatory smile and finally let Robin go, giving Robin the opportunity to survey the rest of his team. Cyborg had a nasty- looking bruise on his eye and his suit was in tatters. Beast Boy, having reverted to normal form bore no physical injuries, but his tux wasn't much better off than Cyborg's, plus he had the additional myriad of juice stains. Raven had a bandage wrapped around her ankle and her dress had a couple of bullet holes.
He looked down at his own attire. His shoes were scuffed, which was to be expected of course, since they were not at all meant for running. Other than that, his clothes had come out reasonably unscathed.
"So what happened?" asked Cyborg once they were all seated.
"Uh, I chased him two or three miles and I finally caught him. Asked a couple questions, but then from nowhere, a helicopter just swooped in and started shooting at us, although I think he was the main target."
"What did the guy say before he died?" The question came from Beast Boy.
"He said-" Robin thought back to the fleeting conversation. "He said that a man named Rupert Thorne sent him because, and I know this is going to sound crazy, Takahashi stole something from him."
"Thorne," Kay mused. She was sitting as close to Robin as humanly possible. "He's a crime lord, right?"
"Yeah. Anyway, he said Mr. Takahashi took something from this guy and that now he wants it back."
"Killing someone hardly seems like the way to retrieve something they took," Kay said. "It doesn't make sense, maybe the assassin was delirious or something."
"Or even lying, I don't know. Still, I'm going to have to ask Mr. Takahashi about it. Where are the others, by the way."
"The other assassins? They're on their way to the GCPD jail."
"Hmmm." Robin's eyes went wide all of the sudden. "How well protected are they?"
"Huh?"
"I think that whoever shot the guy I chased is going to go after them too."
"Even then, it'd be nearly impossible," said Cyborg, the built-in computer in his arm running. "They're in as armored PTV (Prisoner Transport Vehicle) and there's a convoy of five or six squad cars plus a few police choppers just to make sure nothing goes wrong."
"Alright then, lets start with what we know," Robin said. He ticked off a finger. "One, ten guys broke into the gala right before Takahashi was scheduled to speak and tried to kill him."
"About that," Cyborg interjected. "I've finally got an ID on those guys. They call themselves the Elite 5-"
"But there were ten of them."
"The extra five were cheap backup," Cyborg continued. "That probably accounts for some of them being formidable opponents and others toss-offs. The original five out of the Elite are supposed to be pretty good when it comes to fighting, they specialize in the ninja arts, although they have an affection for guns as well. They're mercenaries."
"OK. Anyway, we also know, or are at least pretty sure, that Rupert Thorne, a Gotham crime boss, hired these guys to kill Takahashi." He ticked off a second finger. "What we're not sure about is why, since I'm not sure how reliable that assassin was."
"We also need to find out who the people in the helicopter were," Starfire added.
"Right, I actually have a hunch about-"
The ringing of Kay's cell phone interrupted Robin's words. She pulled it out of her jacket and flipped it open, putting the small device to her ear. It was a completely one-sided conversation, in that Kay didn't say anything. Robin could only watch as her face went from confused to worried to downright shocked from whatever it was she was hearing. Finally, she shut off her phone.
"Who was that?" asked Raven.
"My boss, Vergil Lee. He says that all of the other remaining assassins were murdered while on their way to the police station."
***
Takahashi and Vergil watched the television screen as footage from the mysterious drive-by shooting that had killed the nine assassins plus a good deal of their police entourage the minute they stepped out of the car.
"Jeezus," muttered Vergil. It was bloody alright, and decidedly ruthless as well.
"You are absolutely sure you had nothing to do with this?" asked Takahashi.
"Please! I'm not a moron and there's no way I would kill our only known leads to what Thorne's been up to."
"Thorne then. I must say, its not his style-killing his own mercenaries for failing him."
"Maybe he was in a bad mood."
"Or maybe he actually did accomplish whatever he wanted done, and he had his own employees killed because they were loose ends." Takahashi sighed. "I'm going to schedule a press conference, talk about how thankful I am that the Titans reacted in time, that sort of thing. In the meantime, I need you to find out what exactly the one assassin told Robin before he died. Its probably nothing of significance, but I can't risk the Titans being tipped off about me."
Vergil nodded. "I'll see to it."
And then he got up, something that no regular human should have been able to do. Growling, Beast Boy charged again, this time, slicing at his opponent with his razor sharp claws. In this form, he was fast but somehow, his opponent was faster. He sidestepped Beast Boy just in time to avoid being opened up like a bag of potato chips.
Beast Boy was puzzled now. Somehow, he sensed that these five were different than their cohorts, whom the Titans had taken out with little difficulty just seconds before. Unfortunately, he never got to complete the thought. His animal hearing alerted him to the presence behind him, but he had no time to react to the heavy numchuck baton that came crashing down on his back. He tried to move, but couldn't. It was as if his legs simply weren't obeying his brain. His vision began to blur, and his thoughts slowed down as he staggered, looking for all the world like a drunken cat. A pressure point, the guy must have hit a nerve cluster or something, he thought, right before his world went dark.
Robin could only watch in astonishment as the remaining assassins defeated Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire. Raven and Beast Boy were already down, and an expert strike from Starfire's adversary connected with her head, making a terrible thwacking sound. Starfire had been in midair and she immediately dropped to the ground, stunned. More than stunned, actually. Her eyes glazed over and she soundlessly slumped to the ground, leaving Cyborg to fend off the other five. In a matter of seconds, he too was defeated.
There was indeed something different about these five. They fought much better than the others had, and Robin had serious doubts as to how long he withstand them. He turned to Kay. "Kay, get Takahashi out of here," He commanded authoritatively. The five remaining assassins were approaching.
"I can't," she yelled. "The only exits are at the front. I'd have to get past them first."
It was then that Robin noticed the wicked-looking handgun Kay held in a two- handed grip. It looked so out of place in the grip of such an innocent- looking girl.
"I can hold my own," she said.
Robin certainly hoped so. The five assassins had spread out so that they surrounded the podium, their numchucks spinning furiously. Two of them rushed on either side of Takahashi , converging towards Robin and Kay. Robin barely had time to get his bo-staff up before the baton end of the chained weapon came hurtling at him. Metal met metal with a solid clank, leaving Robin in a very advantageous position. He counterattacked, remembering once more the countless hours he'd spent under Batman's tutelage, training with his bo staff. While it may not have had the versatility of numchucks, it was certainly easier to strike with. He chose a five-blow combination, one of the earliest he'd learned. With the swiftness off a darting snake, he penetrated his attacker's defenses and landed five good blows, all strategically aimed at the weak spots in the human body; nerve clusters, pressure points, etc. The man dropped like a rock.
In his peripheral vision, he noticed another one of the dark figures, approaching him from the side. That trick might have worked on Beast Boy, but it wouldn't on him. Robin delivered a brutal side kick that doubled the man over and followed up with an equally ruthless uppercut that sent his head snapping back. The man tried desperately to put his hands up in a blocking position, but Robin's knockout kick crashed through anyway, knocking him clear off the platform.
He turned to Kay just in time to see her audibly break one of the assassin's shins. He howled in pain, the first sound Robin had heard any of them make since they'd arrived, but then Kay shut him up with a blow to the head from the butt of her gun.
That left one last assassin, and he did not hesitate to point what looked like a gun at the ceiling. Emphasis on looked like, for instead of a bullet, a long, black cable with a grappling hook at the end snaked upwards through the air until it found a steady hold on the outside rim of the broken skylight. He thumbed a button on the handgrip, and suddenly shot into the air, pulled up by the cable.
Robin observed this out of his peripheral vision, calculating his different options. He looked at Kay. "Nice job. Listen, I need you to see if you can revive the other Titans."
Kay frowned. She too could see the fleeing assassin escaping. He was almost to the skylight by now. "You're not going to chase him, are you."
"It won't take long," Robin promised. He turned to Takahashi. "You're sure you're not hurt?"
"I'm fine, but I agree with Kaila. You shouldn't-"
Robin had tuned him out now. He took out his own grappling hook and aimed carefully at the skylight. "Here goes," he muttered under his breath. The grappling hook imbedded itself on the roof outside and he let himself go, holding firmly to his grappler. The assassin above him looked down and pulled out his gun, firing two shots. Robin twisted his body in mid-air, swinging to the left and just barely avoiding being hit by the two rounds at point blank range. Kay was screaming down below that he was going to get himself killed, and he hoped she was wrong.
The fleeing assassin grabbed the rim of the skylight and hoisted himself over. He aimed the gun at Robin who was now holding on to the edge himself. He pulled the trigger.
Click
Robin grinned. "You're empty." He hoisted the rest of his body over the edge, savagely lashing out with his foot. He caught the underside of the assassin's jaw. Then a sharp pain exploded in his gut and he doubled over, the air in his body leaving him all at once.
The assassin didn't bother to hang around any longer, opting instead to run towards the edge of the building.
What is he thinking? Robin wondered as he struggled to his feet. They had to be the equivalent of a good four stories straight in the air. Nevertheless, he gave pursuit, noting that there were a lot of sirens now. It was about time.
The assassin reached the edge . . .and jumped, clearing the fifty or so feet that separated that rooftop from the next. It was an impossible feat, or at least it should have been.
Robin had been trained in the circus. He was in better than peak human shape and one of the best athletes in the world. However, even he couldn't jump a fifty-foot gap.
Or could he?
Robin kept running, except that when he hit the edge, he pulled out his bo staff, extended it, and used it like a pole vaulter's pole, planting it firmly into the roofing and using it to launch himself. He felt a wave of nausea just then as he flew through empty air high above the traffic below.
Then he landed on the adjacent roof, turning his fall into a somersault in order to dispel the force.
The chase began anew as Robin pounded after his quarry, running faster than even he would have thought possible. They cleared rooftop after rooftop at a dizzying pace as they made their way through Gotham City.
Robin finally brought the frantic pursuit to an end. After a half hour or so, he finally gained enough on the assassin that he was able to use one of his customized birdarangs.
It flew through the air with a sharp whistling sound, and the masked assassin turned around just in time to see a black and yellow blur suddenly explode in a massive tangle of black cables. The next thin he knew, he was on the rooftop looking up at Robin with strong black cables tying him from arms to feet. He couldn't move a muscle.
Robin approached slowly now that the guy was immobile. He knelt down. "Who are you?" Silence.
"I said," Robin repeated testily, putting pressure against the man's sternum with his bo staff, "who are you?"
"It doesn't matter," Said the man. His voice was a deep baritone, one that sounded almost sad.
"Why doesn't it matter?"
"Okay then, different question. "Who sent you?"
"Rupert. Rupert Thorne."
The name sounded familiar to Robin, but he couldn't place it. "Why'd he send you?"
Takahashi took something from him." The man coughed, so Robin eased the pressure somewhat. "Takahashi, he's got somethin'." He coughed. "Thorne wants it back."
"What?"
No answer. The man wasn't even looking at Robin anymore. He was focused on something else, something in the sky.
Robin froze and his blood turned to ice. The skin on the back of his neck prickled and as luck should have it, that was the exact moment when he heard a thwop-thwop-thwop sound approaching. His back was to it, but the downed assassin must have seen it all this time.
Robin ran without thinking, launching himself out of the way just in time so as not to be impaled by the hailstorm of bullets that came down with no warning. The sound was utterly deafening. The onslaught tore through the rooftop assassin like a piƱata. Whole chunks of gravel went cascading in every direction as lead pounded the rooftop. The assassin never stood a chance, and neither did Robin if he didn't do something quick.
He ran in a zigzag pattern, making himself a difficult target to acquire but one or two bullets hit him anyway. The reinforced Titanium alloy in his cape kept them from penetrating, but not from knocking Robin off his feet.
A beam of green energy suddenly pierced the dark sky, destroying the twin machine gun turret on the underbelly of the helicopter.
Starfire.
The Tamaranian girl fired two more starbolts, forcing the helicopter away from Robin. Thepilot, whoever he was had the good sense to pilot his craft away while he still could. Starfire didn't waste time trying to chase him down, instead she floated down to the rooftop, offering Robin a hand and helping him to his feet.
"Are you alright?" was the first thing she asked.
"Yeah, I think so. What abut you?" Robin could see now that Starfire sported a rather nasty purplish bruise on her left cheekbone.
"I am fine," said Starfire, putting an arm around Robin to help prop him up. She made the mistake of turning around in the direction of the assassin Robin had been interrogating just a few moments earlier, and her hand flew up to her mouth in shock.
"He didn't stand a chance," Robin said. He sighed, his head low. "Lets go back."
***
Robin had barely gotten through the door to the team condo when Kay leaped off the couch and hugged him fiercely, so tight that he was beginning to forget what breathing had felt like. When she finally let him go, she held him at arm's length. "What were you thinking?!" she half exclaimed, half demanded.
"I'm a superhero Kay, chasing down bad guys is what I do for a living."
"You almost got killed."
"Almost." Robin looked over at Starfire, who had distanced herself to the wall after Kay nearly squeezed him to death. "Thanks Star, by the way. You saved my life."
That got a smile out of her. "You have done the same for me many times."
Kay gave Starfire an obligatory smile and finally let Robin go, giving Robin the opportunity to survey the rest of his team. Cyborg had a nasty- looking bruise on his eye and his suit was in tatters. Beast Boy, having reverted to normal form bore no physical injuries, but his tux wasn't much better off than Cyborg's, plus he had the additional myriad of juice stains. Raven had a bandage wrapped around her ankle and her dress had a couple of bullet holes.
He looked down at his own attire. His shoes were scuffed, which was to be expected of course, since they were not at all meant for running. Other than that, his clothes had come out reasonably unscathed.
"So what happened?" asked Cyborg once they were all seated.
"Uh, I chased him two or three miles and I finally caught him. Asked a couple questions, but then from nowhere, a helicopter just swooped in and started shooting at us, although I think he was the main target."
"What did the guy say before he died?" The question came from Beast Boy.
"He said-" Robin thought back to the fleeting conversation. "He said that a man named Rupert Thorne sent him because, and I know this is going to sound crazy, Takahashi stole something from him."
"Thorne," Kay mused. She was sitting as close to Robin as humanly possible. "He's a crime lord, right?"
"Yeah. Anyway, he said Mr. Takahashi took something from this guy and that now he wants it back."
"Killing someone hardly seems like the way to retrieve something they took," Kay said. "It doesn't make sense, maybe the assassin was delirious or something."
"Or even lying, I don't know. Still, I'm going to have to ask Mr. Takahashi about it. Where are the others, by the way."
"The other assassins? They're on their way to the GCPD jail."
"Hmmm." Robin's eyes went wide all of the sudden. "How well protected are they?"
"Huh?"
"I think that whoever shot the guy I chased is going to go after them too."
"Even then, it'd be nearly impossible," said Cyborg, the built-in computer in his arm running. "They're in as armored PTV (Prisoner Transport Vehicle) and there's a convoy of five or six squad cars plus a few police choppers just to make sure nothing goes wrong."
"Alright then, lets start with what we know," Robin said. He ticked off a finger. "One, ten guys broke into the gala right before Takahashi was scheduled to speak and tried to kill him."
"About that," Cyborg interjected. "I've finally got an ID on those guys. They call themselves the Elite 5-"
"But there were ten of them."
"The extra five were cheap backup," Cyborg continued. "That probably accounts for some of them being formidable opponents and others toss-offs. The original five out of the Elite are supposed to be pretty good when it comes to fighting, they specialize in the ninja arts, although they have an affection for guns as well. They're mercenaries."
"OK. Anyway, we also know, or are at least pretty sure, that Rupert Thorne, a Gotham crime boss, hired these guys to kill Takahashi." He ticked off a second finger. "What we're not sure about is why, since I'm not sure how reliable that assassin was."
"We also need to find out who the people in the helicopter were," Starfire added.
"Right, I actually have a hunch about-"
The ringing of Kay's cell phone interrupted Robin's words. She pulled it out of her jacket and flipped it open, putting the small device to her ear. It was a completely one-sided conversation, in that Kay didn't say anything. Robin could only watch as her face went from confused to worried to downright shocked from whatever it was she was hearing. Finally, she shut off her phone.
"Who was that?" asked Raven.
"My boss, Vergil Lee. He says that all of the other remaining assassins were murdered while on their way to the police station."
***
Takahashi and Vergil watched the television screen as footage from the mysterious drive-by shooting that had killed the nine assassins plus a good deal of their police entourage the minute they stepped out of the car.
"Jeezus," muttered Vergil. It was bloody alright, and decidedly ruthless as well.
"You are absolutely sure you had nothing to do with this?" asked Takahashi.
"Please! I'm not a moron and there's no way I would kill our only known leads to what Thorne's been up to."
"Thorne then. I must say, its not his style-killing his own mercenaries for failing him."
"Maybe he was in a bad mood."
"Or maybe he actually did accomplish whatever he wanted done, and he had his own employees killed because they were loose ends." Takahashi sighed. "I'm going to schedule a press conference, talk about how thankful I am that the Titans reacted in time, that sort of thing. In the meantime, I need you to find out what exactly the one assassin told Robin before he died. Its probably nothing of significance, but I can't risk the Titans being tipped off about me."
Vergil nodded. "I'll see to it."
