Chapter 3
Helena ripped open the metal roof of the warehouse and her father jumped through it. She followed him and fell to the ground below. As she fell she threw out Batarangs with sharpened edges that sliced through the guns the henchmen were holding. She hit the ground and out of the corner of her eye she saw some henchman raise their guns at her father. His batarangs had apparently missed their mark, so she fired two around him and they took out the guns. The gang bosses nearest them took out their weapons, but were met by the fists of Batman and Robin before they could do anything. Helena saw the henchmen begin to run and she went after them while Batman tried to finish up with the gang leaders. When she had taken out the henchmen who had tried to run she helped her father finish off the gang leaders. She had to chase after the last one to finish him off. She thought it was over until she saw a gun barrel peeking out between two boxes. She followed its aim and saw it was pointed right at her father.
She was going to run over and block the shots when a lowly gang member she hadn't seen before grabbed her. It only took her a second to throw the guy off of her, but that second was just enough to prevent her from reaching her father in time to be able to stop the blaster bolts. She watched in horror as her father was torn to shreds by the laser beams.
Helena woke up screaming. It took her a few seconds to realize she had been dreaming and she was safely in her bed, sweating profusely. She looked around to convince herself everything was normal in her room.
The dream she had of her father's death terrified her so much she just had to see he was alive and okay. She got out of bed and put on a pair of sweat pants. She walked down to the second floor and to father's bedroom door. She knocked on it. "Dad," she called. She knew he would likely be asleep, but he had never been a heavy sleeper.
There was no answer. She figured she could peek in, if he was asleep she likely wouldn't disturb him. She opened the door and looked in to see his bed was still perfectly made. There was no sign he had ever come up from the cave.
She knew her father had stayed downstairs to inspect the blasters. She admired his dedication, but knew he really should have put it off in order to get some rest. It was bad enough for him to be unable to admit he needed to retire, but it was even worse for him to not even realize he had to scale things back and rest more. She headed down to the cave to chastise him as well as see what progress he had made with his investigation. She walked down to the study and pushed the button for the cave entrance. The grandfather clock slid aside and she walked down the stairs to the cave below the manor.
All the lights were on and her father was asleep in his chair at the Batcomputer. His head was supported on one of his arms; the arm was positioned on the armrest. He was snoring softly. Helena didn't want to disturb him as he looked so peaceful.
After the dream she had she wanted to check something out. She brought the camera feeds up on the Batcomputer of that night's fight and started looking through them to study what happened.
Helena concentrated on the actions of her father. She watched both feeds and noticed he moved slowly, and he needed several punches to knock out each perp. She thought about bringing up older videos, but she knew exactly what they would have showed. She knew they would have showed her father moving around swiftly and knocking out each perp with one punch. They would have shown a scene far different than the one she just witnessed.
She looked over at her father as he slept with his head resting on his fist. She looked over him and concentrated on the signs of his age. His hair was almost entirely grey, with just a few spots of the old jet black hair left. There were lines on his face that showed his years. He had actually changed to a full face mask years ago to hide those lines.
Despite his age, he apparently didn't see any reason to give it up or even slow down. The fact he had fallen asleep in his chair while trying to find something in the weapons that would allow him to track their source was proof of that. Of course, if he relegated himself to just this kind of detective work and gave up the superhero work, it would be a huge improvement over the current situation.
Thinking about their current case she looked past him and at the grips he had left on the table. She walked over to them and started inspecting them. While every other part of the guns looked to be from out of this world, the grips didn't appear to be made out of any exotic materials. As she looked closer at them she thought they looked an awful lot like the handles of an old line of power tools.
She heard her father stirring in his chair and noticed him rubbing his face. "What time is it?" he asked her.
"It's time for a man your age to be in bed," she said to him. She could hear a slight grumble from him which was his way of giggling. "Have you made any progress on the case?" she asked him.
"No, the materials made to construct them come from all over. The maker did a good job of not getting any two things from one source. It would be almost impossible to follow all the leads."
"What if they were careless about something?" Helena asked.
"What do you mean?" her father asked.
"Well, the makers knew if we confiscated their weapons we would focus on the high tech parts to find how they were made and who might have done it. But what if there was a low tech part they wouldn't expect us to use to track them. They might get sloppy and grab whatever was handy. It might be a unique part that would be easily traceable."
Her father had turned around in his chair while she was talking to him. He saw the handle in her hand and immediately understood what she was getting at. He cleared all the high tech parts off the scanner. "Put it on there," he commanded her to do.
Helena laid the handle on the scanner and Bruce started working the controls. The Batcomputer did its thing and listed the information it had on the handle. Bruce read off the computer's output. "It's identical to the type of handles that were used on Workman power tools. The company went out of business two years ago." Bruce punched in a few commands for the computer. "They had a factory in the industrial area of Gotham. It shut down and a large amount of product was never moved out. That must be where they came from."
Helena suddenly held her breath. She knew her father would not want to let this lead sit idle. He would want to go out and investigate it. Her back was feeling better and she felt up to it physically. What she didn't feel up to was seeing her father put himself in the line of fire again. They had already had one close call tonight and she didn't feel like witnessing another.
"How is your back feeling?" he asked her. She wondered if by lying and saying she didn't feel up to it, she could force them to stay in for the night. However, she was afraid if she said no, then he would go out himself.
"I may not exactly be 100%, but I can go out there," she proclaimed.
Her father stayed silent for a moment as he thought about something. "I think we took out most of the hometown gang tonight," he began. "There shouldn't be anyone left to cause any trouble anytime soon. Investigating this warehouse is something you can do yourself."
Helena was dumbfounded by what her father said. She wondered if this was the beginning of him finally understanding he couldn't do so much anymore. She stayed silent as she didn't know what to do. "Sure, I'll suit up and head out," she finally stammered.
Helena put on a new Robin costume and walked out of the changing room. She headed immediately for her bike, but her father called out to her.
"I have a communicator I want you to wear," he told her. She took it from him and put it in her ear. "I'll be following what you do from here. I can watch through the camera in your mask. I still want you to talk to me and keep me informed with what is happening."
"Sure thing," she answered. She mounted her bike and rode out of the cave.
It was still late night, early morning as Helena rode through Gotham. In a couple hours people would be waking and going about their day. The criminals, on the other hand, were finishing up their activities and making plans for the next night.
Helena rode through the slums on her way to the industrial district that consisted mostly of abandoned factories. On her way, she passed the alley where her grandparents had been killed several decades earlier. She thought to herself that on her way back she might have to stop and pay her respects for a moment.
She parked on the edge of the district and jumped up to the roof of the nearest abandoned factory. The factory she wanted was located at the district's center and she jumped over to it. When she reached it she noticed a fire escape running up the side of it that led to a window which Helena guessed was the factory office. She jumped over to the fire escape and tried to open the window. As she pushed the pane aside the glass fell and broke before she could catch it. She cursed herself over her mistake. Someone inside could have been alerted to her presence by the noise.
"I heard that," her father bellowed at her through the communicator.
"Sorry, I'll try and do better," she told him.
She jumped into the office and took a look around. "The place looks like it has been occupied recently," she said to her father. "There are food wrappers all around here, and they don't look that old."
"It doesn't mean it was occupied by the gang we're looking for," he said to her. "Inspect the place some more."
She didn't need to be told how to do her job. She let the infraction go without a pass. She jumped down from the office to the factory floor and looked around. She found boxes full of the type of handle they had been looking for and other modern tools that indicated someone had been putting things together here. She told her father everything and he was ecstatic to see they had been right.
She found no sign anyone was present. She went into the old break room to inspect it and when she was in there she heard someone yelling from outside the room.
"Yo Vinnie, where are you?" the voice yelled. With the acoustics of the factory his voice echoed throughout the building. Helena clung to the wall so she couldn't be seen through the window. She walked along the wall to the window and looked out at the man wondering around. He looked to be in his forties and was dressed up like a man trying out for a mobster role in a movie. Helena had seen his type before. He was someone who was getting his first taste of criminal activity and was looking to movies to determine how he should act.
"I thought I heard something. What is it?" Her father asked her.
"Some thug has come by looking for another thug," she replied. "He's walking around and looking behind every box and crate. If I'm lucky he might come my way."
The thug spotted the break room and walked towards it. Helena ducked down and crawled under the window to the door. The second the thug walked through the door she grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up and held him against the wall. He tried to break free by kicking her, but all he did was hurt his feet. He soon stopped fighting when he realized it was hopeless.
The thug looked down at her with terror. "Why are you here?" she asked him.
He tried to act tough to prove to himself he was a gangster, something she had seen many times before. "You'll never get me to-"
Before he could finish his sentence she had pulled him away from the wall and then slammed him against it. He cried out, as he had his first taste of the kind of pain she could inflict on him. "I'm here to see Vinnie," he confessed.
"Why are you here to see him?" she asked.
"He told me he had a great money making opportunity. He said he had some product he needed help moving."
"What type of product?" Helena asked. She had a pretty good idea what product was being moved, but she wanted to know just how much this thug knew."
"I don't know," he confessed. "Drugs? What else could it be?"
It was obvious to Helena this guy was some small time scammer who had been called in to help out a low-life who was in over his head. There didn't seem to be too much information she could get out of him except for one little thing.
"Where can I find this Vinnie?" she asked him.
"The Cellar," he admitted. "He told me we would move the product to a safe place from where we could later transport it to the Cellar. It's a bar in case you didn't know. He was going to try and set up a meeting there."
Helena dropped the man to his feet. She pushed him out of the break room and as she did so she placed a small tracking device on him. She pushed him all the way to the ground and yelled at him to leave. He complied without incident.
"I put a small tracking device on him," she told her father when he was gone.
"I expected you would," he replied. "I'm watching his movements right now. I'll let you know if he goes anywhere interesting. The tracker tested his DNA. He's in the criminal system for a couple priors where he fenced stolen goods. He owns a small pawn shop, but has likely never been a major player in anything. He must have thought this was his chance to go big. Look around the factory and see if you can find anything interesting."
Helena looked around and found a few parts, but no intact weapons. Vinnie either moved them on his own, or they were stored someplace else. He was likely going to meet the pawn owner here and then take him to the weapons.
"Should I run to the Cellar to see what might be happening there?" she asked.
"They're closed by now. If you were to go as Robin you might be spotted and end up arousing suspicion which would cause Vinnie to change his plans. We'll have to wait until tonight so we can check the place out incognito. Your secret identity might serve us well in that regard. I'll tell you a little about my plan when you get back. You're going to have a very busy day tomorrow."
The rays of the morning sun shone brightly through the windows. The intensity of the light caused Rex to wake as the light hit his face. He was lying on his stomach with his head turned towards the window. He turned his head so he was facing the other way and lifted up one of his wings so it was shielding him from the sunlight. He used the other wing to shield Maril, who was sleeping next to him.
Rex looked at the gorgeous face of his girlfriend. He ran his fingers all along her back, something she enjoyed immensely. He saw Maril open her green eyes. She blinked a couple times and they smiled at each other when they saw they were both awake. Maril moved towards him and started kissing him as she pressed her bare skin against his. They each ran a hand through each other's hair as they kissed. Maril didn't have much to run her hand through as Rex had a short crew cut, like his former Marine father. Maril, on the other hand, had a full mane of thick black hair that was typical for Tamaranean females.
Rex pulled his wings down and Maril was hit with the full force of the sunlight. She stopped kissing Rex as she did her best to shield her eyes from the light. "I always forget how bright the damn Tamaranean sun is," she exclaimed to him.
They were on Tamaran as Rex was slated to travel from Tamaran to Thanagar that night. When Thanagar fell to the Gordanians over two decades ago, the planet of Rex's people had been closed off from the rest of the galaxy. Recently, the Gordanians had let their Thanagarian puppet government establish relations with Tamaran. Trade and travel began taking place between the two planets and Rex was taking advantage of this relationship to visit his mother's home world for the first time in his life.
"Why didn't we remember to close the curtains when we got in last night," Rex exclaimed as he sat up and threw the covers off of him. He walked over to the window buck naked, not caring who might be able to see in the window from the outside. He closed the curtains shut and the room instantly darkened.
"We didn't close the curtains because our mothers kept us so long going over details of your farewell party. When we finally got back we didn't waste any time getting right to it." Maril talked in a sultry voice that indicated she was enjoying the view she was getting of her boyfriend's naked body. Rex possessed the toned and muscular physique that was typical of most male superheroes.
He turned around and looked at Maril, who was stretched out naked and uncovered on the bed. The soft light gave her skin an orangish glow, a trait she had inherited because of her Tamaranean genes. She had a curvaceous figure with a large bosom that many other female superheroes shared.
Rex walked back to the bed and thought about the previous night. He had been more than happy to spend all that time planning the farewell party. It was tough dealing with his mother, the former Hawkgirl, who was planning most of it. Luckily, his father, a former Green Lantern, was around to hold her back a little. Rex knew it meant a lot to his mother that he was being permitted to go to her home world for the first time. He wanted a grand party not only for his mother's benefit, but for Maril's as well. He planned on proposing before the party and then announcing it to the partygoers and making it a dual engagement/farewell party. Numerous people, including all their parents, knew about the proposal plan. So far no one had spilled the beans to Maril. Rex hoped things would stay that way as he climbed on top of Maril and started kissing and caressing her.
Helena almost tripped over her own two feet as she walked down the stairs to breakfast. She had gotten just a few hours of sleep and was not quite fully awake. As she reached the bottom flight she could smell bacon coming from the direction of the kitchen. It helped to wake her up and she was able to walk normally to the dining hall.
She walked into the room to see her father reading his tablet and Alfred, with impeccable timing, setting down a plate of bacon and eggs at her seat. "Thanks Alfred, it looks delicious," she said as she sat down. She put one foot up on her seat as she ate.
Alfred stood motionless, like he didn't know what to do or say. Helena found this weird and she looked over at him. He had a weird look on his face. He looked over at her father, who looked back at him, expressionless.
"I should take my leave and let the two of you eat in peace," he said as he walked out into the kitchen. He had never felt the need to let the two of them have any privacy before; she was wondering what was different about this morning.
"What's going on?" Helena asked her father once Alfred was out of ear shot.
Her father laid his tablet down on the table in front of him. He looked especially weary to her this morning. She knew he hadn't gotten any more sleep then she had and figured it had to be because of that.
"Last night you were seriously hurt trying to protect me," he began. "You had to protect me because I am getting old and slow."
Helena stopped breathing as she knew exactly what was coming, but she was having trouble believing it. She had believed for a while now that he needed to hang it up, but now that it appeared to be happening, she found herself not wanting it. She was going to miss their time together, and she wasn't completely sure about herself taking on the job on her own. While she had strength he didn't, he had knowledge that she didn't. She knew missing that might be deadly for someone.
"My time has passed," he admitted. "We have planned for this. Last night was my last as Batman. Tonight, when you go out you will go out alone. And not as Robin, you're no sidekick anymore."
A smile crept along Helena's lips. Her father seemed okay with his retirement and she was getting excited about the idea of going out as her own superhero. She had been making plans for this for a couple years now, and had just about everything in place. She had gotten everything together even though she didn't quite believe she would need them any time soon.
"I can do it," she replied, confident as she thought about it some more. "I just need a mask; you and Mom told me not to worry about that."
"Yes, your mother and I put something together for you. It was a while back, but she should still have it."
"Aren't you going to give me the slightest hint what it's like?" she asked.
"I expect you to be able to figure it out on your own," he replied. "You are the world's second greatest detective, after all."
Helena smiled over her father's description of her. She woofed down the rest of her breakfast quickly. When she was done she rushed up to her room to send Maril a message and let her know about the good news.