Author's Note: I haven't touched this one in a while but I had a stroke of brilliance this week and thought I'd write the next chapter. I will be changing the rating of this story to M. This chapter is gonna get intense. I own nothing.
Weeks Later
It had been two weeks. Two endless weeks since anyone had seen or heard from Robin. Two weeks since the team had rushed out and found a mess of metal that had once been the R cycle. Blood stained the roadway and there were clear signs of a struggle but there was no sign of the youngest member of the team. Wally had shut everyone out, even Artemis couldn't get him to talk to her. They all knew he blamed himself for not getting there sooner. Batman had allowed him and the rest of the team to come to Gotham to help in the search. Batman himself was preoccupied with several things, most notably a rash of seemingly random murders. There had been three in the last week alone and the police were baffled. The odd thing was they were all criminals of some level or another. His com beeped and Barbra's voice came over the com, she sounded worried.
"Do you think Robin's ok? I mean normally she… sorry he, gets a message to us somehow. Or at least to you. I mean…" Batman cut across her before she could keep babbling.
"Focus Batgirl. The team and the league are all searching for Robin. I am working on tracking Robin's equipment. All we can do right now is wait and while we wait we take down this killer. Are you at the crime scene yet?" Batman didn't really want to send Barbra out as Batgirl yet, she wasn't ready. But he had little choice with Robin missing. She would have gone out after Diane if he had ordered her to stay in the cave.
"Yeah I'm arriving now. Holy shit." Barbara gagged as she opened the window. The smell was overwhelming. There was blood coating almost every surface in the room, several patches even reached up to the celling where it was slowly dripping back to puddle on the floor. Barbara choked down the bile that had risen in her throat and carefully maneuvered around the room like Diane had taught her, careful to not touch any of the blood.
"It's a bloodbath over here Bats. Whoever, whatever did this… I don't think it's human." Barbara stood in the doorway of the room, one of the only blood free spots. She tried not to think about what the small pieces of meat were that were scattered around the room.
"The police report said the victim had a knife in his hand, but the blood on it was identified as his. Use the filters on your mask, see if you can spot anything they didn't." Barbara nodded even though she knew Bruce couldn't see her and tapped the side of her cowl. A filter dropped down and she scanned the room. On her first pass she didn't see anything out of the ordinary aside from the blood everywhere. Frowning she tapped the button again and changed the filter. This time she spotted something. A small footprint on the window sill. For a second she thought she might have tracked something in but no the print was facing the wrong way. She carefully made her way over to the window. Yep there it was, a small footprint barely visible, a tiny bit of blood outlining the print. She took out a small camera from her belt and snapped a few pictures of the print and peeked out the window, the filter still in place. There were a few other prints leading away from the scene.
"Batman. I found something, sending you the pictures of the prints right now. There's more of them, they are heading away from the crime scene. Should I follow them?" There was a pause on the line.
"Not alone, you aren't ready to face up against someone like this. I'm across town following a lead on Two Face. I'm sending a few people to help you out, they'll be there in a few minutes." Barbara hopped down from the fire escape and examined the footprints. About two minutes later there was a skidding sound and Kid Flash came to a halt next to her, Artemis clinging to his shoulders. He set her down and nodded at Batgirl. Artemis flipped her hair out of face.
"You must be Batgirl. I'd say it's nice to finally meet you but Robin never even mentioned you existed so there's that." Batgirl nodded, not speaking. She wasn't sure her voice wouldn't give her away to Artemis, they did go to school together after all. Wally looked angry.
"What are we following?" His tone was clipped, he was clearly angry about being pulled off the search for Robin, even if it was to stop a psychotic killer. Barbara nodded to the faint trail of bloody footprints. Wally tapped his goggles and turned on the ultraviolet setting so he could see what she was motioning to. They followed the trail for about four blocks. It was clear that whoever this was they were quite the climber. They had scaled three buildings of increasing height in four blocks. There were deep scratches in the walls, possibly claw marks. But eventually they ran into a stretch of even rooftops and the bloody footprints faded out of existence. Wally glared down at the last footprint. This was a waste of his time. He could be out looking for his best friend. God knew what was happening to her. Artemis looked disappointed as well, Barbara was silent. Then a scream broke through the air and all three heroes leapt into action. They raced off towards the sound. They arrived in time to see a figure flipping out of a window, blood flying everywhere. The figure landed on the rooftop in front of them and they saw her in the light of the full moon.
She was a touch shorter than Barbara, dressed in a skintight tan bodysuit that was stained almost black with blood. Fresh red liquid dripped off the claw like tips of the gloves. The mask had Wally swearing though. It was pure white with black eyes like pits. Just like the mask Diane had described to him. He lunged without thinking. Speeding forward he delivered a punishing blow to the mask that should have laid any normal person out. There was a sickening crack and the mask went flying. Wally spun around expecting to see the woman, girl really, flat on the roof. What he saw took him by surprise, like a punch to the gut, sending him stumbling. Artemis gasped aloud and Batgirl screamed. Under the hellish white mask was a familiar black and white domino mask and though her jaw was clearly dislocated she was easily recognizable with her short crop of black hair blowing in the breeze.
"R… Robin!?" Artemis gasped out but Robin clearly wasn't paying attention to her. The white of her mask had centered in on the symbol on Barbara's chest. They narrowed and she lunged forward clawed hands raised to attack.