No more Games

January 26th , 2014.
Mount Justice

The first bomb had exploded at 8 in the morning. Then, the next around ten. In the next 8 hours, 5 more bombs detonated through out the city.

Those of the team, who weren't assisting their mentor in their attempts to locate Batman, sat in front of the television the entire day, watching the news reports that kept on reporting new bomb attacks.

"You think anybody's been hurt?" asked Garfield, looking at M'gann and Conner with worried eyes. M'gann and Conner shared a look.

The news reports were all based on observation from the surrounding city. They could report the events, but not many other details.
"Maybe. But they're small explosions. The newscaster said it herself – none of the buildings seemed to have damaged seriously." M'gann explained, pulling her brother into a hug.
"Then, why bomb the buildings in the first place? What can Bane possibly gain from that."

"Bane is a terrorist Garfield. They do things to scare people, to make them weak. I'm sure that's what this is about."

oOo

Many miles away, Artemis sat in front of her laptop, watching the same news feed. Her eyes narrowed when the report of the seventh bomb came in.
"What is going on..?" she whispered to herself, adjusting the earpieces of her headphones on her ears so the sound from the computer didn't disturb her fellow students in the library.

".. the seventh bombing in the city today. It started on the morning, and have continued ever since. It is always a new building or place, the latest is the Reynolds & Partners, a downtown law firm. The bombings first stared a few hours ago, and as you can see there isn't much pattern in the attacks so far."

Artemis lost focus of the newscasters voice as she stared at the names of the places and buildings that had been bombed. A thought passed trough her mind.

She quickly scribbled down the locations of the bombings, grabber her laptop and bag and ran out of the library.

oOo

"Regonized Artemis B07."
The hall was empty when she entered. She soon found the rest of the team in front of the television (the universal place to look for teenagers after all).

"Hey guys." several heads turned around, obviously they haven't heard the zeta tube announce her arrival.

"Artemis!" M'gann flew up, almost causing Garfield to fall down from the couch. "How long have you been here?"

"Just arrived. I see you've heard about it too." Artemis responded, nodding towards the televison.

M'gann nodded sadly. "Yeah, it's been going on since this morning. I take you are here because of it."

Artemis nodded, pulling out something from her backpack.

"Yeah. And I need a favour. The news stations are uncertain about some of the locations of the bombings."

"What do you want us to do?" Conner asked, muting the television and turning his attention to the girls.

"I need access to the Watchtowers satellite. We need to verify these locations."

"On it!" before they could responds Garfield, in the shape of a falcon, flew past them to the next room where they could hear the computer activating.

"Why do you need to verify the locations?" asked M'gann as Artemis, Conner and her walked to the mission room, where Garfield was now standing, already tapping happily away on the computer.

Artemis looked at her notebook. "I'm not sure. But they just seem a little to random to be.. you know, random."

"Computer up and running!" announced Garfield, stepping aside to allow Artemis to enter the surveillance cameras.

"This is the first bombing. The abandoned headquarters of O'Neil and Partners." Artemis explained, focusing on the still smoking building.

"Doesn't seem like much damage." Conner muttered, folding his arms.

"No. And the building was empty, so why even bother attacking it? It is not Bane's style. He prefer to hurt people."

"Try and load the pictures from the second bombing, the one around 10.00. The news weren't certain which building had been the focus of the attack." M'gann pushed.
Artemis entered the data. "North Road. That's the road that leads to the tunnel that goes under the water and connect Gotham downtown to the northern part of the city. But, it's been blocked by Bane and his people. And it isn't even the blockage that's been bombed, it's just.. the road. But no cars are driving, they have no gas or power.."

".. or jobs to go to anyway." Conner muttered.

".. so why bother to bomb it? It's the middle of winter, it's freezing! Nobody is out there." asked Garfield, flying up and studying the image closer.

"Try the rest of the locations. We have the time of the bombs going off."

They spent the next half hour starring at the screen and the bombed locations from the news feed. They now had names on all of them. O'Neil and partners, North Road, T. McClaren Law School, Rowan Park, Iron Shipping, Gotham Library and Reynolds & Partners.

All locations that seemed to have nothing else in common than the fact that nobody seemed to have been hurt in the attack.
A few of the other team members had returned to the mountain, and joined the group. Zatanna and Mal had helped them locate the location of the last bombing. They'd even been joined by Captain Marvel. And now all of them just stared at the names of the bombings.

"So, what are this telling us?" asked Cassie, staring at the names with a uncertain look on her face.

"Not sure.. but we can't rule out the possibility that it means something."

"I was never good with words." sighed Captain Marvel, sitting down besides Wolf.

Zatanna looked at the man, before turning her attention back to the screen. Words?
She was good with words. She knew every word, forward AND backwards. So maybe.

"I got it!" she suddenly exclaimed, jumping in besides Artemis, pushing her away.

"Got what? It's just random locations Zatanna, they aren't linked in any way." Artemis protested, but didn't interfere when the magician started to align the names of the locations."

"Not directly. But remember, each location was bombed in a certain order. What if that order means something more? Look, these are the full names of the sites:
O'Neil and partners
North Road
T. McClaren Law School
Rowan Park
Iron Shipping
Gotham Library
Reynolds & Partners ."

They others shared a look. "We knew that. What else?"

"You really don't see it? What if I do this?" She then deleted most of each name, leaving only the beginning letter.

O
N
T
R
I
G
R.

"What does that mean?" asked Captain Marvel, standing up. Zatanna looked at them, apparantly starting to get a little annoyed with them.

"Seriously? Now, when I do this?"

She typed i on the screen.

"And then I do this."
They all stared at the words that had appeared on the screen.

ON TRIGR.
ONE TRIGGER.

"It's not Bane! It's Robin!" M'gann all but squealed, flying up, barely able to contain her exciment.

"He is alive! He is okay!"

"And not only that." noted a smiling Zatanna as she put an arm around Artemis. "He just gave us vital key information. Bane isn't as prepared as he would like us to think he is."

oOo

January 26th , 2014.
Gotham City

"Tell me, how did you chose the locations to blow up? You picked most official places so that no business owner would be hit financially by the fact that you blow up their buildings. But you picked a couple of law firms, of all things. Why?" asked Batgirl as they sat in cover of the night, watching as the fire in the Iron Shipping building was dying out.

"Oh, they've all been pretty intense in their hunt of Wayne Enterprise this past year. I thought it would be appropriate to take their mind of that for a while." answered Nightwing casually.

Batgirl smirked. "Right. True justice."

He flashed her a brief smile, before turning his attention back to the fire.

"I hope the Team picks up the clue. They need to know that there is only one trigger. And when we find it, Bane has no control over the Justice League."

"But time is running out. We have little more than a month to find it."

"I have a back up plan. If we fail to discover the trigger, then we need to locate the signal blockers. I'm building a device that can block the signal from the trigger. But it needs to be place upon the bomb and the signal blockers need to be deactivated. Then the bomb will be neutralized." he explained.

"It'll still be a time bomb." Batgirl reminded him.

"As long as it has a few minutes left a member from the Justice League will be able to get it away from Earth and so keep it from causing any harm."

Nightwing stood up, casting one last glance at the burning building.

"It's getting darker. The fire won't spread. Come on, we need to get going."

oOo

January 26th , 2014.
Mount Justice

"This is truly good news!" exclaimed Wonder Woman, turning to Superman. "We may soon be able to help Robin!"
The Team had just informed the League of this new development. The Man of Steel regarded the team members and the two former members – Artemis had brought in Wally when they'd had their breakthrough, his eyes clearly showing that he was not convinced. After all, they couldn't risk being wrong.

"Are you absolutely sure this message came from Robin? It could be a trick from Bane."

"Why would Bane send os cryptic messages?" asked Zatanna, stepping forward with her arms crossed, a frown on her face.

"And why would Bane pick places where no one would get hurt, even if an entire building was blown apart?" asked Coonner.

"It's Robin." M'gann added. "It can only be Robin. We are sure of it."

"If you would please show us the video feed from the Watchtowers satellite." asked the kryptonian.
Artemis shrugged, before loading in the same feeds they'd just spend hours staring at at the Watchtowers screen and then began to point out the locations.

".. and that is the shipping enterprise that.." she explained, when Superman suddenly stopped her.

"Wait." he narrowed his eyes, starring intently at the screen.

"Go to points left, to that roof top." he pointed. "and zoom".

Artemis looked at the league leader before complying. Then her eyes widened. As did the others.
The image, taken from outer space, showed two people running across the roof top. Two persons dressed in black.

"Who is that?" asked Flash, turning to Superman. The Man of Steel narrowed his eyes.

"Not sure. But they look like they are in a hurry. Next image is taken about 2 seconds later, right?"
Artemis nodded, still staring at the screen.

"Please load it."
And she did. However, on this the two mystical dark clad people were gone. They hadn't jumped to the next roof. They'd disappeared.

"Is it the League of Shadows?" asked Conner, turning to his mentor. Superman frowned.

"I don't think so. I haven't had much to do with the Shadows, but I'm pretty sure they doesn't use capes." he reloaded the first image, and pointed at one of the two unknown runaways.

"Is it Robin?" asked Cassie, starring intently at the person with the cape.

"No, I think it's a woman. Look at the hair. And her cape is longer than Robins." Black Canary pointed out.

"I didn't know Gotham had a female vigilante?" said Garfield, confused.

"It don't." said Flash, folding his arms. "Bats is very strict about that."

"Guys, call me crazy. But I think that might be Robin." said Wally, pointing at the other – capeless – person in the image. "I know what he looks like! "

"How can you tell? And in case you've already forgotten, Robin's outfit is read AND he wears a cape. That guy is wearing all black and no cape." Flash pointed out.

"Hopefully we'll meet them and ask them ourselves. But for now, we really need to get on with our own agenda. We have to divide the league and the team in two groups now. The Team will look for Batman, the league will keep an eye on Gotham in case there's some new development. Robin – or whoever this is, has managed to inform us that the time bomb only have one trigger instead of multiple. That puts us in a better position, but we still need to get the bomb away from the city before the time runs out." said Superman, shutting down the computer.

Not much to say about this chapter. Time is running out.

I'm busy at work (I just got promoted last week!)
I hope you still enjoy the story.
Please review! And stay awesome.