The meat packing plant was cold, a lot of the meat kept on ice to preserve its nutritional value. Robin crept through what felt like miles of freezing cold ventilation systems, possibly getting lost, if it weren't for the mini map on his heads-up-display, guiding him to the main packing floor.
As he finally reached the over-head ventilation system of the main floor, he could hear and see Black Mask's thugs moving around the packing floor. Armed, dangerous. No doubt joined from Penguin's gang, upon the crime-boss' disappearance after Batman dealt with him during the Protocol 10 incident.
"Alright, you bozo's," a sharp, gravelly voice roared from an office.
Robin stopped and turned, looking through a grate towards the source, and a tall, muscular guy, appeared in a window at the head of the room, wearing a white shirt, slacks, with tatty old tie and a shoulder-holster for his two, very shiny, pistols. Black Mask.
"The train's on its way, this is where we get outta this town. Lock this place down and get the weapons ready for transport," he snapped.
"Yes sir, Mister Mask." The thugs replied, and started shifting boxes onto the train carriage.
Robin's jaw clenched, and he counted 6 thugs still moving around the floor, guarding the process. Clearly, they expected a party-crasher, but was it a bird-shaped crasher? Or a bat-shaped crasher?
He continued along until he found a small room he could climb out of the duct, and shook himself to spread some warmth back into his bones. The middle of winter, in a meat packing plant? These guys were mad to join up with Black Mask, but then again, it meant a ticket out of Arkham City. Even Tim had to admit, he would take it.
Using his thermal imager, he picked out the nearest thug and sprayed the iconic R symbol onto a weak wall, and took cover behind a desk as he waited for the proximity alert to flash on his HUD. He didn't have to wait long. The entire room shook with the explosion and the thugs screams were drowned by the deafening blow. He moved quickly, ducking out of the room through the smoke and grappled up to a cluster of industrial lights high above.
He took a deep breath.
"Find out who's screaming!" Blask Mask roared from the office, and his thugs, who had reluctantly been heading towards the explosion, moved a little faster.
"Hey, boss? Tony's down!" one thug roared as he sifted through the rubble and checked the Tony's pulse. "He's alive…looks like some kinda explosion."
"Grenades?" another thug asked.
"Nah, man, that ain't the Bat's style." The first replied, and stood, looking around. "Boss! It's the Bat!"
Robin frowned, looked up at Mask.
"Find 'im! KILL 'IM!" he roared.
Robin, now feeling rather disgruntled, grappled to another cluster of lights on the opposing wall and scanned the room once more.
The thugs started moving off around the room again, searching offices and peeking over railings to the floor below. He took out a Shiruken and flung it across the room, perfectly timed, aimed and executed to ricochet off a door frame, into an office, and into the back of a thug's head. As several of the thugs raced off to investigate and help their dazed colleague to his feet, Robin dropped down behind a lonely thug, and twirled his cane through the air, extending it, turned so he was back-to-back with the unfortunate criminal, and drew the staff across his neck, pulling him over his shoulder, sharply onto the cold, unforgiving metal walkway, and knocked him out with a loud crack.
He dropped a Shiruken onto the ground beside the unconscious body and retreated into the shadows above.
"R?" one of the thugs called.
"SHIT!" Mask roared. "It's Robin."
"So glad you know my work." Robin's voice echoed around the room.
Guns drew and cocked instantly, the sound was enough to draw a smirk across the young vigilante's lips.
"I was beginning to feel a little side-lined." He admitted.
"Listen to me, you worthless fuckheads," Blask Mask ordered from the window. "Find that little feathered son-of-a-bitch and clip his freakin' wings," he snapped, "I don't need to tell you the consequences now, do I?" he asked.
"Uh, no sir!" the thugs chorused.
Robin smirked and glided down to an unprotected area.
"THERE HE IS!" A spooked thug cried and fired his gun, a wide spray of bullets clipping the edges of Robin's cape, the wall behind the young hero, and finally the wall behind him.
Robin let out a small sigh of relief and ducked behind some machinery.
One of the Thugs appeared, jumping down from the walkway above, and looked around.
"Where are you!?" He yelled wildly, fear evident in his voice.
Robin's thermal imager allowed him to watch the thug through the machine, and leapt out, taking his staff from its clip and activating the shield, which sprouted from it, and moved towards his enemy.
The thug yelped and fired instinctively, a bullet scraping Robin's thigh, making the Boy Wonder gasp and lunge forward, hitting the thug and stunning him. The shield retracted and Robin twirled it, hitting the guy repeatedly before grabbing his shoulder and tugging him forwards, attaching a device to his shoulder, and pushing him over.
The thug yelled out, finally attracting attention. Robin ducked into a nearby vent in the wall and crawled through it.
He emerged in an office, panting a little. He reached behind him, into a pocket of his belt and retrieved a small syringe, and injected a mix of morphine and adrenaline into his system. He waited a couple of seconds and then reactivated his communicator.
"Oracle?" He said.
"Robin! What's wrong?" She asked, noticing his vitals increasing.
"I got clipped. Nothing major. Flesh wound..." he chuckled lightly.
He could tell Oracle was frowning. "Did you find Black Mask?"
Robin panted softly, "Yeah, he's guarded. These guys are wearing his masks, but old Two-Face and Penguin gang uniforms underneath." He told her. "I got here, they're readying weapons caches to be moved onto a train, which Mask says is their chance to leave Arkham City."
"The old Gotham rail system has started running again, but only the elevated system. It has no stops in Arkham City."
"It does now." Robin replied. "I'm applying a wireless download crack to the hard-drive. Should be available to you in seconds." He said as he plugged in a small black device to the rear of a computer. He heard the little 'blip-bing' ring over the airwaves and Oracle confirmed the connection.
"Okay, I'll leave you with the computers. They might help. I'm going after Sionis now."
"Robin, wait, I-"
But he had already disconnected. He ripped the lower section of his cape and tied it tightly over the bullet wound on his leg. Then he returned his attention to the thugs, glowing a warm orange colour through the blue walls.
"Boss! I got 'im! The little sucker's bleedin'!" The thug Robin had tackled was yelling up to the office, joined by a second who had helped the first to his feet. "He got me pretty good with some kind'a shield thing tho-" the thug had begun continuing but was interrupted by the miniature explosion of the device on his shoulder.
The force of the erupting Snap-Flash sent the thug flying through the air, head-first into a cold, metal pipe, knocking him out.
This made Robin smirk and grapnel up to the walkway where the wall had exploded on the very first takedown, and winced as his leg wound scraped against the metalwork. He picked himself up watched the final thug moving around slowly.
"Come on...where are you?" He growled fearfully.
Robin followed his movement silently from above, and waited.
The thug was thorough with his search, opening grates and checking inside vents. He even shot down a nearby cluster of lights, the explosion and sparks rained down on the walkway below.
Robin quickly grew bored, and tossed a Shiruken lazily towards the thug, startling him. He fired off a small burst and then climbed to the walkway.
But Robin was nowhere to be seen.
Then a shadow passed over him and the thugs blood went cold. Shivers ran up and down his spine quickly and he slowly turned to see Robin, standing behind him, cracking his knuckles.
"M-M...Mercy!?" The thug roared in fear before Robin's fist connected with his jaw and nose, stunning him and causing him to fall to the floor. It was swiftly followed with the knockout blow.
Robin turned and ducked for cover when he heard Black Mask roar and fire his pistol from the office window.
As he stopped to reload, Robin tossed the last two Snap-Flash devices at the window; one either side of the frame, and detonated them.
He heard Black Mask cry out as he was blown backwards by the explosion, through a hole in the office floor and down to the rail platform below.
Through which the train had pulled up, the guns had been loaded, and was now beginning to pull away slowly.
Black Mask groaned as he got off his back and began running for the train.
Robin was up and running too, diving through the window and straight through the hole, landing with a roll. He stood and fired the line launcher at the rear of the train, which abruptly pulled him along and onto the end of the car.
He paused for breath, panting slightly and rubbing his sore shoulder. Trains carried a lot of force behind them...