Nightwing; A Series of Doubts – Give and Take –
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Chapter 3: Clashing Staves
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~ The world is such a scary place, sometimes you need to hide…~
A security guard at the front gates to a museum of National History had his portable radio tuned into some late-night ramble; something those goth or emo kids listened to after-hours – just as a swift shadow had ignored the snoring fat man to get past the sensors that he'd deactivated.
The halls were dark. Where was that device from Venice's one renaissance exhibit. The Nostradamus one?
~ Come inside, take my hand and away we fly. To better roads uncharted. ~
The music grew dimmer, yet it covered those blank spaces rather nicely. He'd ended up in a time that there was no turning back. He'd lost a part of himself if only then, so how. How did a relic with time magic fix all of this?
The darkly clad thief felt useless in his own guise. An explosion, a battle and a beam. He checked for the directions listed on a scrap of old scroll paper, not before a cute device with dual points got flung at the wall off to his left, as he turned his head to see what minor threat wanted him to pay for breaking into said museum.
"I'd take that you admire the finer things in life. Well, tough."
The hero.
The man wanted to roll his eyes at how ridiculous this seemed.
"This is none of your concern, child. I'm attempting to change history."
"Magic – user? Never took a thief as the type to have the knack for casting curses." Dick had heard of this man's, he imagined, appearance through a feed Babs had granted. But this exhibit was closed and very old, very priceless. Whatever the thief had meant by 'changing history Dick as the boy wonder, A.K.A Robin couldn't trust this enemy - not anyway you sliced it.
"You're not getting away with the crime of ruining history –
"For whom, I wonder?" The man pulled out his knives and got into an attack stance. Heck, for some reason Robin noted, his opponent was too buff to be a ninja or a simple thief. He was here for another reason…yet, that could wait.
They clashed; blade to sticks, yet the man really didn't want an audience if the guard woke up, so he looked to tripping the boy, yanking the scroll and a special time piece in the shape of a rotating orb in his grasp. Lastly, he set off the fire alarm with his extra blade and a distance made between them. Water spraying down onto the other parts of the room with Robin's mop of hair now no exception to this rule.
"You won't get away!" Robin yelled and launched himself at the man, yet the jerk used those precious relics to shield himself. Preventing Dick from getting in a close hit. Decision made, Robin grabbed his grapple and sent it to hit a wall ahead of the thief…however, his thief in the dark had his knives and Dick was forced to run back on foot as the guard up front slept on. The dead not waking him as the two ran down the hall labeled "Terracotta Army Exhibit."
It was on loan to Blud for the month, and there it made the most perfect maze for this villain to dodge his pursuer's advances.
Dick froze and looked amid hundreds of warriors; all formed by the laborers of the past in Ancient China, he scoped his target out carefully until he'd spotted the gleam of gold from the thief's time relic. Letting his staff this time pole vault him closer to his foe, Robin tried to avoid cracking these figures as the corn maze wove them deeper into the center of the wide room.
The light of a jaded moon peering down from the skylights above, yet never touching the fade of the hooded stranger who'd stolen a portion of the past.
Dick kept running, until –
"No!"
The exit was to the rooftop stairs. He had to stop him. He had…
To be the hero, or lose for tonight and sulk for even more nights, to Babs about it.
They got through the Terra cotta rose – garden maze, while Dick did get close enough to rip the scroll from the enemy's claws.
The thief turned only once with a cold eye back and squinted before letting the doors fall open with a mighty push. The lights of a black helicopter in the background blinded only one of them.
The thief's carriage, awaited him….
"It's been fun, yet there's work to be done!" The man called back as Dick shielded his eyes, the scroll the only item he'd saved from such a strange character.
"When we should meet again, hero…" His enemy was lost as the copter took flight into the night; Dick's other hand empty of the one exhibit's main piece that would not be returning to the Louvre in the next few weeks to come.
A very, happy un – birthday to him for failing the mission.
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Babs looked over a solid image the next morning of the scroll's page, using her home-made program to translate the script from Italian with her monster computer network. With a yawn, Dick made it harder for her to concentrate. "Can you try to just take, fifteen?" She asked a bit peeved, and raised her head to the monitor speakers. "You've not gotten any sleep since you came back last night from the national history museum." Chiding him wasn't going to work, yet it never hurt to be just as stubborn at times.
Coffee wasn't a magic pill to every crime fighters' problems...
~ I can't rest until that thief is found and the relic is put back into its display case. ~ Dick said dryly to his friend. ~ Sorry, Barbie…I had no idea it was a high-stake game that…this criminal was playing. I thought BludHaven wasn't known for having "organized" anything. ~
"That may be a shock to anyone, I do wonder." She hummed and typed at the keys relentlessly to figure out what Dick's midnight enemy had been gunning for. What was there to steal? Nostradamus didn't have magical powers. He believed in the scientific principles according to this description…and this was not his work but Galileo's…
~ HOW could the curator mix up the two? ~ Dick nearly fell out of his seat at the results.
"It's not from the same time. Look. It's even got a date but no name." Babs zoomed in on the scanner's image. "But data on this thing found a match." She prided herself, beaming at the screen. "The pen work is not Nostradamus's, but a work created by thee Galileo to pull…time, together?"
~ The thief wanted to change history. He was too late though, the instructions; he won't get very far without them and we had the board in a position to add extra security over the next couple of weeks. ~ Dick hopped over to grab something for breakfast. Just because he was deathly pale from a lack of sleep, didn't mean he had to be malnourished as well in his own home.
"You still got paid and hired by the city to watch for the thief's second attempt, they predicted unlike Nostradamus…that he'd be back by tomorrow night to steal back the scroll."
~ I'll need to speed this up, though. ~ Dick shut the fridge door with his hands full of a carton of milk and a new box of Crocky – crunch. Courtesy of Wally. He now had a month's supply, and a very suitable early birthday gift it was. ~ Have the scan and anything useful on that thing sent to my computer. I'll do the homework. Promise. ~
He gave her a grin and sat down for the first time in weeks, almost like a normal person.
~ Just report if something's in there that you get stumped on. ~ She rolled up her sleeves and got back to work. ~ I'll help in any way I can. Partner. ~
Suddenly too early too soon, Barbara heard a rather loud crunch in her ear and snorted, laughing at how he'd bounced back at that moment of triumph. Certainly nothing like the kid's mentor at all. What a boy wonder that Grayson still was!
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Dick didn't want to be too close to Babs and make it seem awkward, yet his worry was that working together in the future…
He shook his head and bit down into his favorite Gotham bad -guy themed cereal. "I want to know why a thief at a museum has any interest in relative, time – alternating theories…" He rubbed his chin and replayed the images as any other time as a Titan.
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"I had it, and this?"
"Back so soon?"
The thief turned around and was sure he'd felt a déjà vu someplace within the sketchy warehouse.
"I got the device, but your silly boy wonder took his time in keeping the scroll safe. The one with a message attached on how to use this, whatever you'd call it?"
"I needed one, from a single time and place." The figure came closer and swiped the device from the thief's palms.
"You may do as you wish... Now, leave me to my work."
"Yes. Of course." The thief forever vanished as of now. His built being a ruse to make the boy think he was chasing more than a difficult shadow.
"Underlings." The mastermind huffed and walked back to his escape vehicle in the back lot. "Never know what you're in for with such faulty programming."
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Nostradamus. Galileo's signature.
Bab's pen was chewed to bits as she moved onto the next one. Dick was busy trying to take her advice for once as he took to a decent twenty-minute cat nap instead, claiming the sugar had overloaded his system. More meat and veggies through the week as Babs's find….
She let her eyes wander a bit.
"Here, the lever is good and stars will come out as it is pulled well in the direction of Venus…" She scratched her head and read some more.
"The lever now will be subject to…. are you kidding me?"
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The next night was more guards, more security sensors and one boy wonder waiting up top to swoop in to salvage the last pieces of this puzzling rumor, putting it to rest. That the thief was super – human or that it worked for some top-secret organization. That the boy wonder was going to face off against his new nemesis.
Tonight, it was, as he prevented his gloved palms from sweating, anymore.
~ Are you in position, Robin? ~
Babs fed his unit the info that the cops couldn't get. The real question being…
When would he show, this thief in the night.
An hour ticked along by and the janitor had even been told to go home, to just be careful walking to his car.
Dick tapped his fingers impatiently and let out a huffed sigh. "You think he'll be at this location, Barbie?"
~ I have more than enough proof. ~ She nodded and pulled up an image on her screen of two men in their prime. ~ Here though, Nostradamus had almost passed away when Galileo was born in "1564." And Nostradamus didn't officially pass until…1566. That means the only way was through Nostradamus's works that Galileo years later would ever have to understand how he created…whatever this contraption says it is. ~
"And then, what does it do?" Dick asked her in a whisper, steps now approaching.
"Just the staff head of security. False alarm." He grumbled. "Go on."
~ Yeah. So, Nostradamus was already dead and he used to make predictions; was booted from medical school since he wouldn't touch a plague infected corpse…it was the new strain in that time that returned – you never read about it? –
"No time." Dick dismissed the thought of dark eras since past. "Wouldn't blame him for wanting to stay alive during a wide – spread reemergence of a historically devastating contagion. So, what else."
~ Oh, so he did understand to an extent esoteric beliefs, but was called a lot of things because of his predictions. They say some of the man's words actually came true, but who knows. It's not impossible in our world, boy wonder. ~
" Fascinating Babs, but how are they connected if one is already –
A shwing leaped through the air as Dick turned his attention to one guard's throat, below him.
That had been cut. Not on his feet anymore….
"Officer down –
Dick turned down his comm's sound as Babs let her partner work in peace.
~ See you in the next hour! Don't get shot this time! ~
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He wasn't there for the scroll. He was in it for the message to get across. Just as he'd been programmed to. Just how it was as a metal staff came flashing through at him from the rafters.
"Got you!"
This boy wonder was of no timidity as he swung to kill. To break the man's invisible bones. His frustration, with the way he couldn't keep a sharp eye out was a bother, this he could exploit in due time.
Just as the program told the bot.
The boy would have to find them out, eventually.
"You came here to see me? Funny, this being twice in one week should be a record." The boy dodged the blows and even put a disrupter up to stop last time's event from doing him some damage. He was dressed over in black, that thief. Just as his next lesson would hit home.
"This time, I decided to be better prepared." Dick sneered and raised his weapon to corner the thief.
"No escaping, no last words. You are going to –
"Rookie mistake, child." The bot crouched atop an exhibit's glass case as bells went off above their heads.
Lasers hitting them as Dick was forced to flip for dear life while being attacked back.
"You should learn to savor the silence."
"As if I'd listen to a thief!!"
"Sure, you did look suspicious yourself." The bot turned to land a kick into the kid's staff, snapping it back into two escrimas as Dick relied on his anger to keep him wide awake.
The bot stood back, arms in a stance that Dick had to squint at. A familiar one, and his build too set off flags as it ran without the scroll. It was getting away, again!
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The bot panted on towards the forbidden lot. The warehouses all identical, save for one with a hidden extra security panel as it allowed the worn robot entrance inside its walls.
The dim lights let in only flurries of dust motes. The one atop a catwalk was now on ground level. Same as before as the man had come closer; to remove a perfect piece of its soldier's metal face plate. Wires and a delicate screen with a chip fitted into the drive, the piece was plucked out carefully by the bot's terrible employer.
"Excellent work." The shadowy male examined the screen as it replayed an image of Dick speaking to Babs. The noise of static not an issue to override. "You're still the same, Robin. A detective in my eyes, but for future reasons…" He turned around to a crackling golden device neatly kept in its case. "We can't have you discovering my plans, too soon."
He replayed the words Dick's informant and possibly, what his partner had checked out with some keen, interest…that was a woman's voice. Touché, boy wonder.
~ ~ Oh, so he did understand to an extent esoteric beliefs, but was called a lot of things because of his predictions. They say some of the man's words actually came true, but who knows. It's not impossible in our world, boy wonder. ~
~ In our world. ~
He replayed it back.
~ In our world…. ~
~ Our world…~
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Ohhh, so who is the man in the shadows pulling the thief's metal wires out? Find out! Read on and stay curious!