"Help! Somebody help!" the shaking voice of the old woman reached then, before a hand clapped over her mouth and she made a pained noise as a steel-toed boots sunk into her ribs. Roy switched off his communicator, as did Scarlet, before stalking out of the shadows...
"Shh, shh... it'll be alright soon. Just a few more things to do before you'll be dead, and it'll be over. And the world will be safe."
Both Roy and Scarlet froze, shocked. It was dark, so they weren't spotted, and Scarlet gave Roy a look. Clearly this wasn't your ordinary killer... It was a woman, for one, a young, blonde woman with green eyes and Hollister clothes...
"Please..." the old woman was begging, now, trembling where she lay... She looked to be about eighty, frail and trembling...
"No. You cannot be spared, Huitzilopotchli is starving..."
"Scarlet!" Roy pulled her behind the couch. Their sudden movement made a slight noise, and the would-be-murder's gaze flew up. She looked around like a nervous deer for a moment, before her smile returned...
"What?" Scarlet asked, looking annoyed. "She might know we're here..."
"Huitzilopotchli is the Aztec sun god. They believed he lived off human blood and SACRIFICED to him." Roy said.
"Okay. Good to know..." Scarlet cast a glance out a the woman before nodding to Roy and jumping up. The murder had raised a knife, but a moment later Scarlet launched herself into the air, her sneakered foot coming into contact with the woman's hand and sending the knife flyign, where it hit the wall with a clang. The woman stared, a cold, calculated stare of a killer...
"Sparrow!" Roy was alarmed she'd already engaged the woman and knocked an arrow as the woman pulled out another knife.
"Stupid children! Can't you see? Huitzilopotchli has been starving for centuries! All signs point to the end! Unless we feed him..."
"You're killing helpless old women. I highly doubt that's saving the world." Roy let his arrow fly, knocking the other knife from the woman's hand. The old woman stared up from where she laid on the floor, trembling...
"Sparrow! Get the victim to safety!" Roy ordered. In truth, he just wanted Scarlet out of danger. The woman scrambled for her knife before slashing...
Scarlet yelped and fell, and Roy felt his anger bubble over.
"Sparrow!"
"I-I'm alright..." Sparrow clutched her shoulder, scrambling towards the would-be victim...
Roy let a tangling arrow fly, the bolas wrapping around her legs, sending the woman to the floor with her legs tangled...
"Go." he helped Scarlet to her feet as well as the old woman, shoving them towards the door...
A knife flew past his ear and sunk into the wall, but was stopped when suddenly there was a birdarang in the woman's shoulder.
"Time to join the party." Wally said, grinning, and Robin jumped off his best friend's back. They'd needed to get here quickly, so he'd had to ride piggy-back...
Scarlet was practically carrying the woman down the old, rotted steps in the back, laying her on the grass of the back yard... It was late November, meaning it was already dark, and Scarlet could hear a creek winding through in the distance...
"Are you hurt?" she asked, looking at the woman. She stared at Scarlet, wide eyed...
There was a bloody gash on her forehead, and Scarlet tore off part of her sleeve, pressing it to the wound...
"Wh-who are you?" the old woman asked in a shaky voice.
"No one special." Scarlet replied. Suddenly she heard gunshots from inside and stood.
"Keep pressure on that wound. I'll be back."
"Everybody down!" the woman yelled. She'd had a handgun on her in case things went south, which they clearly were doing, now, and she'd decided to pull it out as soon as she'd freed herself from the tangling arrow, and she pointed the gun at Roy, now, eyes wide with shock and glinting with insanity, teeth grit with determination.
All three boys exchanged glances from where they now laid. They weren't in their hero gear, they were in civvies, meaning they were a LOT less bulletproof...
"Where is she!? I haven't finished the ritual yet!" the woman said, looking around desperately for the old lady. Roy remembered then the Aztecs had a sacrificial ritual they'd perform...
"The girl..." she growled, heading towards the back. Roy had no doubt she'd gun down Scarlet in order to finish the ritual.
"Sparrow! Run!" Roy yelled, launching himself up from the floor. With the gun no longer pointing at any of them he felt safer, and he grabbed the woman's ankle in a hope to slow her down. He didn't expect her to whirl and point the gun at him, and rolled at the last second to the side, nearly deafened by the sound of the gun going off and feeling a burning pain on his arm...
"Roy!" Sparrow raced into the room and the woman whirled, pointing the gun at her, now. Sparrow didn't bat an eyelid, leaping at the same time as Robin. She flipped behind the woman and swept out her legs from behind her, while Robin launched himself at her, pinning her down, holding the gun-wielding wrist down.
"KF! Now!" Robin yelled. Wally zipped by, grabbing the gun and removing the bullets, and Sparrow nailed the woman with a punch that send her eyes rolling, knocking her out cold.
"Right..." Robin tied her up, but his hands were shaking from the close call...
"Roy!" Sparrow ran over to her surrogate brother, eyes wide with concern as she rolled her surrogate brother onto his back. Roy winced, still clutching his upper arm, but gave her a smile that doubled as a grimace.
"I'll be alright, birdie. It was just a graze..." he said, looking at the wound. It was bloody, but it wasn't deep, and nothing they couldn't take care of later...
"What about you? Did the knife get you?"
But then sirens had begun to scream in the distance, and they all knew they had to go.
"We can play doctor later." Robin said. "Let's get the victim inside."
They helped the old woman inside.
"Just tell the police everything that happened. We have to move." Roy said to her, nodding to the old woman before they all clambered out the backdoor. They disappeared into the woods, grabbing the backpack's they'd stashed there. Roy, Wally, and Dick all changed in an instant, back to their school uniforms, though Wally was already set, since he went to public school...
"You need help, Scarlet?" Roy asked.
"No way. I can so dress my... hsss..." she hissed in pain as the slash on her shoulder made contact with her blazer.
"You okay? Scarlet?" Wally asked.
"I'll be fine, Wally..." Scarlet said, pulling on the plaid skirt. Roy hadn't looked, but he wouldn't have hesitated to help her dress. He was like the girl's older brother, and she was only seven.
"Let's go." and they were dashing through the woods, leaving the godforsaken murder house behind them.
They didn't stop until they'd left the woods behind them and were standing beside the highway.
"Okay, here's the plan. Everyone, hoodies on- no one sees the school blazers." Roy ordered. "Wally, you can run back to Star. Say you passed out or fell asleep or something. Scarlet, Dick, come with me..."
"It's been eight hours, Bruce. You don't think something happened..."
"No. They're out there somewhere." Bruce said, looking into the darkness. The field trip had been abruptly halted, darkness had fallen, since winter was coming and night came earlier, and even though searchers had been combing the area, they hadn't found anything yet.
"I know. But someone could be hurt, and it seems like they'd have found their way out by now..." Oliver pointed out.
"They'll be fine." Bruce said, hands clenching into fists. Because really, he couldn't imagine if they weren't. The kids had been slowly growing on him in the two years he'd had them, and now he just wanted them safe. But it was November in New York, and temperatures were dropping to well below freezing. He felt a pang, thinking of them out there, alone in the cold.
"Come on. We're only like ten miles from the place." Roy said. He nodded to his surrogate siblings, and they quietly exited the woods, leaving undercover of darkness, They made it to a truck stop not a hundred yards away and watched which direction trucks were going in. A flat bed pickup heading north came in, and when the driver left to go inside the rest-stop for coffee they quickly jumped into the back.
"Now, let's get the story straight." Roy whispered to his siblings as they laid in the tailgate, hidden beneath a tarp, on their stomachs.
"We got lost on the tour in the woods and have been struggling through the highland cliffs for the past eight hours. That's how we got these cuts. And we're just glad to be home. Are we clear?"
"Right." Dick and Scarlet both nodded, and they heard the truck door slam as the driver got in... It was incredibly windy, and they were already cold from wading across a creek, but they managed.
The man slowed, and they looked up to see a police roadblock ahead, checking cars.
"Crap. Our Dad's must've freaked. Let's move." Roy ordered. Thankfully, there were no cars behind them, so they weren't in any headlights, and they were far enough back that no one noticed the three figures steak off into the woods.
They ducked, fighting through the brush until they reached the signs that announced they were on the battleground, in some of its massive forests.
Roy grinned. "We made it. Now, we have to head towards the cliffs..."
Half an hour after trudging through the cold, they reached a sheltered area by the northern cliffs. They were all drenched and cold, but they sat down together...
"We got our story straight?" Roy asked through chattering teeth. They all nodded. Just then it started to sleet.
"Bruce- just to prepare you- something might've happened." Oliver said.
"Nothing happened." Bruce said firmly.
"Bruce- despite their... hobbies... they aren't invincible. Someone could've been kidnapped."
"No one is kidnapped. I won't believe it until I hear it from the others..."
"Move! Everybody, we found 'em!" Someone yelled. Bruce and Oliver both perked up as the crowd parted like the red sea, and the three children were stumbling forward, wrapped in blankets with blue lips...
"Is everyone alright?" Bruce asked, crouching to be eye level with both his children.
"A l-little ba-banged up..." Roy stuttered. His fingers were fumbling and his eyes were glassy. Bruce noticed the blood on Scarlet's shoulder and how Roy was holding his upper arm...
"Let's go." and they were gone, cars streaking towards wherever.
They both pulled up in front of the Wayne Manor, Oliver hustling Roy out of the car. The three children were rushed downstairs, and Roy suddenly found himself in the Bat cave... He looked around, shocked to see the stories Robin had told him were all true... He was hardly able to appreciate it, though, partially because of the pounding headache, convulsive shivering, and burning cut on his arm, and a slew of other medical issues he was sure he was having now. Plus, he was hustled towards the zeta tubes. The last thing he remembered was falling into a bed in the watch tower medbay.