A Mechanized Encounter

Having been Robin for 3 years, Ruby can say that she has seen everything in her line of work. She's seen the likes of the usual, the unusual, natural, the supernatural, and then some. Honestly, not a lot of stuff can surprise her these days after witnessing cases such as mutated faunus', forced hybrids, crime bosses, nut cases, serial killers, assassins, etc. But there was this one string of cases that baffled the Girl Wonder.

For the past couple months, the police have been getting tips regarding different crimes from the simple mugging to even corporate scandals. While it isn't uncommon for cops to receive from anonymous tippers, it's the quantity and quality of evidence given that raised a few eyebrows. Almost every crime reported by this individual would come with large quantities of evidence of good quality to help back up a case. It was perfect...a bit too perfect actually. It was for that reason Commissioner Gordon sent the cases their way.

Normally, with how unusual this case was, Batman himself would have investigated the anonymous tipper personally. Unfortunately, larger cases kept popping up before he could do anything about it. That's why the task had been shifted to his sidekick and partner, Robin.

Ruby has done enough cases with Batman, and even some solo cases of her own, to prove to be adequate enough for the job. As mentioned before, she was no stranger to the bizarre and weird, so perhaps this case would be as simple as she thought. Unfortunately, the investigation became a lot more sophisticated as time moved on.

Even with the help of the Batcomputer, a technological marvel in the entirety of Remnant, Ruby couldn't seem to be able to trace either from where or from whom the tips were coming from. She tried finding any sort of connection between the cases, but that only led to a deadend. Even with the different evidence provided by the tipper, there doesn't seem to be any sort of tampering, adjustments, or falsifications made. They were 100% real and legit.

That was the odd part. Whoever this person was had to be a master hacker as majority of the evidence came from private servers, secluded files, unofficial cameras, etc. Not even Batgirl, the techno prodigy of the team, was capable of such feats. Hell, she wasn't too sure what to make of it either.

'Either someone made a killer AI from the movies or Riddler turned over a new leaf'

The case would've been categorized as part of the "Unsolved" cases folder for the dynamic duo, if it weren't for the anonymous tipper directly messaging them from the Batcomputer.

When the message popped up in the Batcomputer, it scared the crap out of Ruby and caused her to think that they were compromised. Had it not been for "Anonymous" assuring that their line was secure and nothing has breached, the girl would've continued to panic. Things then started to get interesting.

ANONYMOUS: Heard you've been looking for me.

GIRL_WONDER: Who the hell are you? How did you hack my computer?

ANONYMOUS: It's complicated. I see you've been doing your research.

GIRL_WONDER: More like, investigating your whereabouts.

ANONYMOUS: I assume you'd want to meet?

GIRL_WONDER: Only if you promise not to kill me.

ANONYMOUS: ….

And that's how Ruby ended up in the more isolated part of Mantle. Dressed up in her suit, Robin waited under a street lamp for this anonymous. Not many people pass this part of Mantle so whoever this person is, it's either someone who disliked populated areas or someone who can't be seen under the public eye.

Robin wasn't exactly sure how long she had been waiting. However, she didn't need to wait any longer as various street lights in the area suddenly ran out of power. Heavy metallic footsteps can be heard walking behind the vigilante before coming to a stop. Prosthetics, maybe? Amputee?

Turning around, the Girl Wonder finally gets to see what this anonymous tipper looked like. Unfortunately, she's still unable to completely tell as he was conceived by both darkness and baggy sweats with both hands deep into its pockets. He was quite larger than her as this individual stood taller than her 5'3 self and seemed to be packing what appeared to be muscle mass underneath his sweatshirt. While she can't see his entire face due to a hoodie, she's able to make out the dark skin tone of his jaw and mouth. Judging by the clothes he wears, he must be native to Atlas as he's wearing sweats from a private school back in the city.

"So you're Robin," the man started, his voice sounding oddly robotic. "Thought you'd be taller."

"And here I thought you'd just be some guy in a basement." Robin retorted.

A soft snicker left his mouth, but Robin almost couldn't tell from his deep modulated voice.

"Always the jokester, aren't you Ruby Rose" said Anonymous, surprising Ruby at the mention of her identity.

"So you know my identity, yet you have neglected to introduce yours." Ruby said, moving closer to get a better look at Anonymous, but was stopped as he raised his hand, or should she say, metallic hand.

If he was using a prosthetic, it had to be the best kind Ruby has ever seen. Each digit moved smoothly and without any sort of delay, as if it were a real hand. It didn't resemble any sort of craftsmanship that Ruby could recognise, and yet the hand itself looked identical to those of a normal man, minus the metallic look.

With his hand now being seen, anonymous did not but sigh before removing his other hand from his pocket and pulling down his hoodie to reveal his entire face.

He wasn't a faunus, that's for sure, but she can't really call him a complete man either. While the majority of his face looked human, the upper left of his face was made up of some metallic alloy and his eye was replaced with one of a red light. He wasn't just a man, he was a Cyborg.

"The name's Victor, Victor Stone."

Sorry for the long wait. I have re-edited almost the entire story (Omakes included) by fixing some errors, rewrote some scenes, and even adding more scenes to enhance aspects of the story. Volume 1 of the story is almost about to wrap up so I hope ya'll enjoy this in the mean time. I would like to thank you all for the support, please leave a review or a comment on the story, and I hope you enjoy.

I do not own any of the characters. All characters and names used are owned by either Rooster Teeth and Detective Comics (DC).