Just like when Batgirl popped up, none of us could sleep. Not even after the sun came up that following morning. I kept my phone charged and connected to my portable charger just in case he were to call again. Not only that but I haven't even heard anything from Batman and it's almost been 3 Days. Two of which I hadn't slept a wink, never even feeling the urge to blink, sit down, or relax in any kind of fashion. Jinx walking through that door unharmed was what I kept on the forefront of my mind. The girls being the ones to keep me centered as I would like to say that I was doing the same thing for them as well. It wasn't until the end of my shift that I decided to ride around town to see if I couldn't find Jinx and who took her. I had called the ladies at home prior to this and told them what I was planning on doing.
Harley said that she knew of a few guys from Joker's crew who weren't affiliated anymore but might know something. On top of that they were better than most when it came to how his henchmen treated her. So her and Ivy were going to check that out. Blackfire took to the skies and flew at near sonic speeds, turning over every empty warehouse along the very edges of the city. Larissa and Caitlin paired up and hit the pavement.
It wasn't until I had gotten a call from an unknown number that we had something.
"Where the fuck is she you prick?!"
I growled but was given a response by someone different.
"Hey there Damien, how's it hanging? It's Nightwing by the way and I might have a lead on your girlfriend."
Elsewhere: 3rd POV.....
"Where are you?"
Damien asked.
"North end of Founders in an alley just off the intersection of Grand Avenue and 23rd. Buuuut you might want to hurry, this guy is just as quick on his feet as he is on the trigger."
Damien put his foot to the floor when Nightwing told him this.
"No offense, by why is it that you're calling me and not Batman?"
Nightwing crept back ever so slowly to avoid detection when the masked stranger looked like he was looking in his direction.
"There's a couple of different reasons, one of them being that Batman is currently on the fence with you. So hurry up and get here, grab your girl and get the hell out of there. I'll keep him busy while you snag her."
Damien didn't argue with Nightwing seeing as how he knew that he was an expert at this sort of thing. But at the same time there had been a couple of pieces of the puzzle that snapped together in his mind. Nightwing was obviously Robin at one point, Batgirl and the current Robin were all trained by the same person, that person being Batman himself. When he thought about the red bat symbol he immediately figured that whoever this guy was happened to be trained by Batman as well. The only part that he didn't understand was why? Why target Batman because of a grudge?
Short Timeskip: Damien POV.....
I didn't alert the girls of what was going on not because I thought that they would mess anything up which they wouldn't. But because less people who were on this meant less complications. Nightwing could hold his own no doubt about that. So I was certain that he and I would be able to do this without their being any involvement from other parties.
"Nightwing, Nightwing where are you?"
I whispered into the alley.
"Right behind you..."
I whipped around on instinct and nearly caught him in the face. He was able to side step and redirect my punch with ease.
"Good instincts, great reflexes too. But you might want to work on it, you were too predictable."
"Thanks for the tip, no homo. But where's Jinx and the jackass who took her?"
He pointed all the way down the alleyway towards the storage building that sat near the overpass but under the rail line.
"This was as close as I could get without him noticing. We're good to move in.."
He then handed me a comlink.
"To keep in touch, don't go for Jinx until I say other wise."
He then ran up the side of the wall and flawlessly flipped his way up the fire escape. In the back of my mind something felt familiar to me. Not when I talked to him but with the way he moved. It was almost like I had seen it somewhere before.
I quickly put that thought to the side and focused on the task in front of me. I followed Nightwing up running up to the fire escape and launched myself upward to climb over the railing. My muscles felt a bit stiff still, but a little bit of cardio should loosen them up quite nicely. As I chased after Nightwing across the rooftops I didn't do anything super complex like perform a triple front flip and land perfectly on my feet. But I was still able to do things like tuck in my shoulder so that I rolled over and hit the ground running when I landed.
Nightwing had then separated from me and went off around back.
"Make your way to ground level and wait for my signal."
"Copy that, making my way down now."
I replied before hopping over the edge and sliding way down the ladder.
'Hold on Jinx, we're on our way.'
I held my position down in the alley just across the street while Nightwing grappled across and made his way in from the rooftop entrance. It hadn't even been a few minutes before I heard gunshots coming from within the building. I said fuck it and ran inside.
"Nightwing, Jinx where are you?!!"
I yelled out but was then met with a light hail of bullets at my feet.
I jumped back around the corner just in time as I saw Nightwing and the red masked guy.
"She's down the hall, keep running and don't stop!!"
Nightwing yelled.
"Oh no you don't!"
The masked guy exclaimed as he pistol whipped Nightwing. Nightwing was able to parry but this guy was holding his own. That was until the masked guy drop kicked Nightwing over the railing and shot him in the center of his chest.
Due to the amount of adrenaline pumping through my body and despite what I had just seen I didn't allow myself to stop. I kept running down the hallway and turned several corners until I found Jinx tied up and laying on a mattress with a rag wrapped around her mouth and one of the same collars that they used on meta humans at Arkham.
"Jinx!!"
I dropped to my knees and quickly went about untying her. As she opened her eyes they looked glossy, like she had been drugged or something.
"Mm...mmmnnn....."
She muttered through the gag until I took it off.
"Be...behind you..."
Before I had a chance to react I was grabbed from behind and put in a headlock.
"I still have need of her, you can have her back once I'm done!!"
The masked guy said.
I ground my teeth together as I forced my arms down with my palms facing the ground.
"Like....hell!!!!"
I roared before twisting my hips to the side and hooking my right leg behind his left. Forcing him to break his grip on me and allowing me to turn and slam my elbow into his solar plexus. The guy then backflipped to his feet and took aim.
"You must think you're such hot shit, taking down all the mobsters and gangsters around Gotham!! Taking on Batman and Nightwing the way that you have, but how tough are you without you're lead spitters huh?!!"
The masked guy chuckled as he holstered his guns and took a stance.
"More than you can handle, Damien!!"
We then took a running start at each other while roaring in defiance of one another.
Meanwhile: Elsewhere: 3rd POV.....
Beneath the foundation of Wayne Manor, rested the legendary Batcave. Where the Dark Knight himself was getting ready for yet another nightly crusade.
"Sir, Nightwing's distress beacon has gone active."
Batman marched towards the batmobile as he looked to his ever faithful friend and butler, Alfred Pennyworth.
"Send me the location Alfred."
"Already have sir, please do be careful with this one."
He says as Batman gave no reply and sped off down the tunnel.
After he left, Alfred had a thought that's been haunting him ever since this whole ordeal started. In order to satiate it as well as his curiosity, he pulled up the footage from Batman's body cam that was linked to his cowl through the Bat computer. As the Dark Knight, Nightwing, Robin, even Batgirl have been hitting the streets more harshly as of late, Alfred had been requested to find the identity of the one who donned the red bat symbol and so far has had no such luck. But as he ran a scan on the footage he left to go upstairs and prepare tea for Batman's return.
Damien POV....
I was absolutely getting my ass handed to me on a silver fucking platter. This guy that I was fighting was as ruthless as he was relentless. He had already bashed my face in well enough for there to be contusions. My lip had also been split open, couple of fractured ribs and other ligaments for sure. But he was also just toying with me, allowing me to hit him only once every so often only to deliver a counter and then hit with me with a combo that I couldn't keep up with. I got lucky the few times that I actually was able to block or parry what he threw at me. But none of my actual attacks were getting through.
"Like I said..."
He whispered as he knees me in the gut, slammed his elbow into the center of my back, then throws me up against the wall only to kick me a few more times in the chest.
"I'm more than you can handle Damien. Stay the fuck down if you know what's good for you."
As he turned his back to me I latched on to his ankle.
"Apparently you don't know.."
My scalp was screaming as he picked me up by my hair until we were nose to nose.
"Allow me to educate you then."
He then slammed either fist into both of my lungs before Spartan kicking me down the hallway. As he walked up to me he held his hands out to either side.
"Had enough yet?!!"
Was I stubborn as fuck or just plain stupid? Not even I could give you a proper answer to that question. I spat out the blood that pooled in my gums and stood up with my hands at the ready.
"I can do this all day.."
The masked guy stood there silent but only for a split second as I threw a haymaker which of course he saw coming. However that's what I had wanted him to think it was when in fact it was a faint disguised as a haymaker. I then threw my body into a spin and kicked him so hard that he flipped onto his back.
I didn't rush in as he kicked his feet upward to where he was once again standing up right. Denying him the ability to take me down while on the ground.
"Heh...ehehehe...hahahaha!! You really are something else!"
The guy said as he came at me. Doing the same thing that I had just done, he disguised his haymaker. I then found him in my blind spot and before I could react he plunged a needle into my neck.
"But still not good enough."
He whispered in my ear as I felt the sedative take hold so quickly that I blacked out before I even hit the ground.
Timeskip......
When I woke up the room that I was in seemed to be almost pitch black. The fog that covered my mind told me that the effects of the sedative still hadn't worn off quite yet. Not only that but when I tried to stand up I found that I had been restrained, tied to a steel beam with chains and a harness which put me in the same position as one would be in if they were wearing a straight jacket.
"The fuck? Ughnnn...."
I muttering while still groggy.
It had taken a few moments for the pain to start settling back in as I then winced at the pain that came from almost everywhere.
"Wow, you're awake. And here I thought that you would have been out longer than that."
The voice of the masked guy said from the darkness.
"The lowest dose of tetrodotoxin that any human being can withstand. Any more and you'd be in some serious shit."
I couldn't see him, but I could here the sound of his boots as he grew closer to me.
"What...what did you do with her, where's Jinx you fuck?!"
Upon saying this I was given a backhand that caused my head to scream. It felt like I had been hit in the temple with a sledgehammer.
"She's fine, and back in the hands of your other ladies. Which forces me to delay my plans even further so thanks to you I have to rearrange my timetable."
Hearing this put a smile on my face.
"What can I say except, your welcome?"
I chuckled as I quoted Maui from Moana.
The masked guy sighed in annoyance.
"Can't you just do me this favor? Shut the fuck up, and stay the hell out of my way!!"
I shook my head.
"So long as you're going after the people that I care about that's not gonna happen."
The masked guy squatted in front of me as I could see the glow coming from the eye slits of his mask. He remained silent for so long that it was like he became a part of the silence in the room itself.
"I used to have someone that cared about me like that. Or at least I thought they cared..."
He said before standing up.
"But when I found myself to be in one of the worst moments of my first life I realized that he was just as crazy as the filth he claimed he's fighting when infact he wasn't any better, he was far worse."
"You're talking about your dear old man the big bad bat right?"
I asked as he snapped around and wrapped his hand around my throat.
"If he was anything he claimed to me that he was he wouldn't have abandoned me!!!"
He yelled.
"He wouldn't have allowed that fucking clown to take me!! He wouldn't have replaced me with someone who's now wearing that god awful suit that I once wore!!!"
Everything that he said registered immediately to me.
"You were Robin...Joker he..killed you?"
He then let go of my throat and took a few steps back.
"If that's the case then how are you alive, and why not just go after him rather then drag other people into your shit?!!"
"Because I want to him to know damn well that his actions must have consequences. I need him to understand that allowing the scum of Gotham the continuation of their pathetic inhumane lives makes him just as bad as them!! If he was really a hero he would have killed the Joker years ago and spared all the people that he's killed!!"
Whatever it was that happened to him to make him this way honestly made me feel sorry for him.
"You're not the only one who's had daddy issues."
I said.
"My father was an angry alcoholic who would beat on both me and my mother. CPS never cared, the cops never did shit unless they saw it which of course they couldn't because they weren't Superman with X-ray Vision. Whatever happened behind closed doors unless they were kicking them in at the wrong address wasn't their problem."
The masked guy stood there as I told him this still in silence.
"I stopped praying long time ago when I realized that if there was anyone that was going to save me it was myself. So that's exactly what I did, and in all that time up until recently I was completely and utterly content with being that guy who wanted so desperately to have someone that cared in my life but still be the very same person who never received such a luxury. Everyone who claimed to be a friend had either ghosted me, betrayed me, or both in the end, all except for one. He and I were as thick as thieves when we were kids. To be honest I was okay with him being a ghost. I even forced myself to imagine that he was living his best life, had a stable job even with a couple of kids and someone that loved him more than life itself."
The masked guy then pulled up a cinder block and sat on it, intent on my story.
"I stopped thinking that I would ever see him again because I didn't want to be that selfish prick who sat there whining and complaining over the things that I just couldn't have. And yet here I am, tied up and in chains all over one of these several women that had made me feel more blessed than I could ever describe with any amount of words. But that doesn't mean that you need to pull the people who others care about into you're vendetta, making those who are sitting at home worried sick to their stomachs and making them think that they'll lose those people just as you lost yourself!!!"
Once again the masked guy sat there in silence for a good few moments as he contemplated everything that I just said.
"You're friend... what was his name?"
"...Jason, Jason Todd."
When I told him the name of my friend he stood up in shock.
"You're lying...."
He growled.
"You're lying!!!!"
"How could I possibly make anything that I just said up on the spot?!! Riddle me that dick head!!!"
He then kicked something over to the corner of the room and threw his mask away on top of that before turning back to face me with his Desert Eagle presses to the center of my forehead.
Despite my vision being blurry I could never forget his face. Sure he's all grown up, a splash of white in his medium cut raven black hair, a long scar starting from just under the left side of his lips and going halfway up towards his left eye which within the both of them held so much rage that it was almost like I was looking into the eyes of the devil.
"Who...the fuck...are you?!!!"
He snarled while baring his teeth.
"Jason?"
I muttered weakly in disbelief before getting pistol whipped, causing everything to go dark once more.
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Hello everyone, I hope you all enjoyed part 3 as we continue on into part 4.
As I said in the last outro I plan on making this Arc somewhere between 5 to 8 parts.
So please if you're enjoying the story don't forget to smash that like button before following and sharing with your own followers as well as on any and all social media!!!
Another thing that you should do is look up all of these artists YouTube;
Daddyphatsnaps
Rustage
DizzyEight
Conner Quest
Fabvl
Divide Music
Along with so many others who make raps about Marvel, DC, Anime, and Mythological Characters such as Sun Wu Kong AKA The Monkey King and Anubis The God of the underworld from Egyptian mythology.
These artists have also done collaborations and rap cyphers together that I really hope that you go and check out cause they be spittin for real. Anyways, here's another Red Hood Rap, enjoy!!