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Part Twenty-One: Chapter 148: Told You So

Batman stood on the ledge of a fifty story building, peering down at the dark alley below. A gang had robbed a liquor store and killed five people in the process. Three men, one woman, and one child. A child that they viciously raped before bashing her skull in with their boot heels. Batman had tracked their whereabouts to a strip club on the edge of the city. It was one of the Joker's clubs, but Batman knew he wouldn't be bumping into the Joker tonight. The Joker was somewhere far away from Gotham. It had been almost a year and a half now and Batman was starting to feel a mundanes in his vigilante duties. None of them challenged him the way that the Joker did.

Batman turns to Robin, "I'll take the front. You go in the back and make sure nobody takes the elevator or the stairs up to the roof."

"Got it," Robin said as he free fell from the ledge and plummeted into the darkness below.

Just as he was about to safely land he could make out a figure at the back door. He was buff and dressed in a suit and tie. Everything about him screamed gangster. But Robin was prepared for this. He drops down just a few feet in front of the mobster. The mobster was going for his gun as Robin thrust the end of his favorite Batman approved weapon into his stomach. The air could be heard leaving the man's body all at once. Then Robin jerked it upward, giving the mobster an uppercut that knocks him out.

Then Robin reached for the door knob and gave it a turn. He carefully enters the rear exit, on guard for any living being he may cross. He navigates his way through the back of the club looking for the elevator and stairs. He knew they would be close to one another. He needs a vantage point that allows him to see both at the same time. He finds the perfect spot and crouches in a defensive pose. Then he waits. However, the wait wasn't too long. A mob guy comes running around the corner, obviously racing to the elevator. But Robin was ready and waiting. He pulls a trigger and a net shoots out and tangles around the man. As the man fights to free himself, Robin kicks him in the face to knock him out.

But before Robin can move into a defensive pose, a second man comes running and makes it safely into the elevator. Robin shakes his head and walks into the stairwell. He fires a grappling gun into the top floor and zooms up it. He beats the elevator, but not before the crook could make it up the separate set of stairs that lead up to the roof. Hot on the man's heels, he finds himself on the roof. He watches as the man stops dead in his tracks when he reaches the edge of the rooftop. Robin isn't the least bit surprised. Robin sees men jump and miss rather often.

"Just stay where you are," Robin warns.

The man turns around with a sinister smirk. Robin notices the gun under his arm. "And what are you gonna do about it kid? Wait here, babysittin me til the bat shows up to beat the hell outta me? Everybody knows the bat don't use no guns. Can ya stop me before I can reach for my gun and shoot ya?"

"Care to find out?" Robin snarls at the criminal.

"Come on kid, this ain't about that little slut is it?" The man looks at Robin with a stone expression that held zero remorse.

"You mean the eleven year old child that you raped? Or her mother that was shot and killed?" Robin growled as the anger spread through him and encompassed everything.

The man tsks, "I ain't got all night to play twenty one questions with ya," he says as he reaches for his gun.

Without a second thought, Robin rushes for the man. He approaches him and slams both palms into his chest with an angered shout. The man's gun goes flying. A look of utter shock crosses the man's face as his body falls backward over the edge of the building. Robin stood at the edge and peered down, panting, into the darkness below that had swallowed the man up.