Chapter 1
Tim swung from rooftop to rooftop, looking down at the city below. His comm crackled to life.
“Red Robin we have a situation in the diamond district by the old LexCorps lab that shut down a few months ago.”
“Heading over now Oracle.”
He quickly changed his direction by swinging around the corner of a building and jumping on a nearby roof. He ran across the roof then leaped off while firing his grappling hook. The wind stung his face and threw his cape around, but he loved it. The city flew by him in grays while the lights blurred together making bright lights streaked against a black canvas.
Before he knew it the even brighter lights of the diamond district came into view. Tim spotted the smoke billowing out of one of the only buildings on the block that wasn’t sparkling in some way or another. He landed on the ground in a smooth motion and looked around. There didn’t seem to be any people inside but just in case clicked a button on the side of his mask that showed, other than the fire there were actually three heat signatures.
Tim clicked on his rebreather and carefully made his way into the building avoiding the fallen debris. The smoke was thick, if Tim didn’t have his rebreather on he wouldn’t be able to be in this building for more than ten minutes without serious health issues. Quickly he sent a mental thank you to Alfred for reminding him to put it back in his belt after he took it out to repair it after a Scarecrow incident. The area around him slowly became more engulfed in flames the farther he went into the lab. He heard voices yelling at each other. Something about quantum particles, which definitely meant nothing good.
Tim made his way towards the voices, one female and two male. Peeking into the space the three arsonists occupied he saw they had two large bags that they seemed to just be stuffing full of whatever they could get their grubby little hands on. So they were looters with the side business of arson. All three of them had plastic masks in the shape of different animals. The guy who seemed to be in charge had a wolf mask and was now dubbed “Furry guy” in Tim’s brain. The other guy who was a bit shorter and more lanky had a lizard mask and the girl who was the tallest one there had a lion mask.
“Oi Tandy get the goods and scram this place is about to blow in ten minutes.” Furry guy hissed at the Lizard man.
“I know I know, but it wasn’t me who set the bomb timer off by accident,Alice.” The Lizard man shot a look at the Lion girl.
“ Just stuff the bags Tandy, the big man is gonna be pissed if we don’t get these goods to him.”
Tim had enough of this conversion and now on a time limit shot out of his hiding place “Was there a dress code I wasn’t told of I would’ve dug my old cowl out of storage.”
“Shit it’s one of ‘em bats.” The lizard guy shrieked
“ Tandy, Alice, go I’ll deal with the bird.” Furry guy commanded in a voice that sounded like his lungs have seen better days.
The two other looters nodded and took off towards the exit. Tim was about to follow them but something grabbed his ankle and swapped him off his feet. Looking down expecting to see the hand of the guy Tim was slightly surprised to see metal wrapped around his whole ankle and foot. He made eye contact with Furry Man before promptly being thrown into a wall. He felt one of his ribs crack which is going to start hurting like a bitch pretty soon.
Ok now Tim was just pissed, this time when the metal arm-thing came at him ( when did Furry man have a metal arm?!) he grabbed onto it to the surprise of the guy and then yanked it forwards sending the man hurtling towards Tim. He then jumped on the man’s shoulder, whipped out his bow staff and electrocuted Furry man until he fell unconscious on the floor. Tim let himself breath for a second leaning against the wall next to him until he remembered the bomb. He definitely did not have the time to defuse it.
Seriously wishing he could have a tiny bit of Kon’s super strength, Tim with maximum effort lifted the guy up off the floor and started to hobble to the exit. Which was where he came from. Just as he was nearing the exit the ceiling fell in front of him. Tim took a deep breath in which is when his rib decided to make itself known. You know, his patrol was going so well before this. He couldn’t move the object blocking his path because it was curtly on fire. Turning around trying to spot another way out. The only option seemed to be the way he came back towards the main lab. If Tim’s estates were right he had three minutes to get out of here before it blew.
Picking up the pace he quickly made his way back through the main lab past a few broken animal tanks. There had to be a back exit nearer the lab in case of emergencies like this one. Tim was so focused on finding a way out he didn’t notice a little red and blue spider crawl onto his leg.
“Shit shit shit. I refuse to go out like this, Jason is going to re kill me if I also steal his whole I got blown up and died thing.”
He started to just run as far back as he possibly could until he finally, finally spotted a door. Tim could almost cry tears of joy, the amount of relief he felt when he opened the heavy door and smelled the scent of Gotham air touching his face could not be measured. That was short lived as a wave of fire hit Tim in the back flinging him forwards. He had forgotten about the bomb again, then his world went black.