20325/Nuclear Fingers

Nuclear Fingers
Date of Scene:	28 March 2025
Location:	New York Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant
Synopsis:	Robin and Batgirl see to the end of a serial killer, that was kidnapping people from the bowery. he had been angry about his nuclear power plant project never reaching its full operational status, and had been taking it out on everyone involved, even a waitress.
Cast of Characters:	Barbara Gordon, Damian Wayne

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Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara and Damian had come across a strange case, of a potential serial killer who was tattooing severed fingers with nuclear power symbology. They had helped save a possible victim of this killer too, and through it they had discovered a number of leads that had ultimately culminated in following to this very point. They arrived tonight, near midnight, at an abandoned nuclear power plant project, that never finished construction. Some manner of money issues left the project totally scrapped, with the foundation of the plant nearly completely finished. The power core had never been installed, but the planet itself was fully built, or damn near it.

Today, though? It was overgrown with nature trying to reclaim its bare bones, covering the exterior of the building in all manner of foliage, while graffiti was painted all across every large cement wall.

Babs, in her full armor, stood atop an out-building on the power plant property, a former construction boss' main office. She had dispatched from the GGE Blimp, and flown down to the site, to land quietly in the dark.

"Looks dead..." She grimly said over their shared team comms.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Somewhere on the abandoned plant's grounds a lone tree had grown up in the intervening years since construction had been abandoned. The tree itself is without leaves on account of spring not yet being in full-swing and in the shadow of that tree a lone figure lurks. Damian's pressed his back to the tree and maintained a vigil from the darkness afforded by the waning crescent moon affording only a sliver of silvery moonlight. Not nearly enough to cause him to stand out among the shadows.

The comment from Barbara issues into Robin's ear and he answers, without nodding as doing so would be pointless since he's alone and it's dark, "It does". Succinct as usual.

Slowly Robin begins to creep forward, but pauses before that first step even falls. Slowly his leg withdraws back to the shadow of the tree and he begins to scan his surroundings, seeking out anything that might appear to be some form of detection system such as cameras or motion sensor floodlights. He seems to seek out a more technological assistance in performing that feat beyond his own eyes, adjusted to the dark as they are and enhanced by the lenses fit within his mask, "Your drones picking up anything drawing power in the area? Cameras, lights, anything?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The drones in question were sweeping low over the power plant's darkened skeletal-like structure. They were scanning for everything Damian refered to, and a fair amount more than that too. Damian's searching and scouring turned up nothing that seemd to suggest that there was any life at all in the place tonight. There were security cameras, but they seemed to mostly be inoperable, likely let go of long ago too.

"Strangely enough, I'm not picking up anything." Babs quietly replied, as she took flight again, this time sweeping low over the ground, before her grappling line extended with a 'thwomp'. It snagged an upper ledge of the main power plant structure, and she used it to gain altitude. Damian would see her soaring above, and vanishing over the ledge of the facility roof. He'd know she was ditching most all caution, and headed inside to investigate, most likely.

"It seems unlikely we'd catch him here in the act, if it's a him at all. Maybe it's a robot. A killer robot." She quietly jest, ever trying to keep the mood a bit light, and easy going. It was Babs' nature, and though some of that had ebbed a bit from her personality, as she aged, it was ever-present still at least a little.

"I'm at the roof access. See if you can get ground floor access. We'll meet in the middle. this place allegedly has a basement too, but I am not quite sure how much they finished in it..." She explained, as she popped a door open on the roof, and peered in to the dark.

Damian Wayne has posed:
The movement overhead draws only a glance. It's only Batgirl sailing through the air above to reach the rooftop. Damian's quick to sprint forward, staying low. He's like a shadow among shadows. He reaches what was likely once intended to be a loading dock's maintenance door and much like Barbara's own cavalier approach, Damian's is no less. He reaches out to the door and slowly, carefully peels it open. A swish of air escapes as he does so as though breaking open a hermetically sealed environment. The gust of wind created smells of dust and the light scent of mold. As a matter of precaution Robin's hand moves to the small of his back, hidden away beneath his cloak.

Once the rebreather mask is fit over his face to reduce the chances of breathing in something unsavory, Robin slips through the crack of the door. He speaks at barely a whisper and the receiver within the throat of his suit picks up his words, loud and clear for Barbara, "Statistically we're looking for a male, probably caucasian. Now that I've acknowledged that fact, it will likely be a one-armed asian female that's six feet four inches tall and wears her hair in a mullet".

He slips into the loading area. No doubt it would have once been used to transport new supplies into the facility and waste out, but now it is simply an empty stretch of space that's been long abandoned. The problem with such large, open spaces is that they echo. Despite his impressive skills at moving quietly, every footfall threatens to sound like a dream beat as Robin begins to move. He walks toe-to-heel, the dampeners within his boots activated and struggling to keep the footfalls quiet and from echoing.

"I'll go up, you go down. We'll meet in the middle, then go to the basement together? Basement could be flooded," he hazards as a guess.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"Never play in to stereotypes." Babs softly replied to the younger member of the duo, though she had a smirk of amusement playing across her pink lips at what she heard him say. She was slipping through the shadows upstairs, moving without much fear of what would be in here. Vagrants might be the biggest threat, but her sensors hadn't picked anything up on the drones, plus they were a little too far out of town for the homeless to really find this to be an accessible location.

The further in to the interior she got, the more particles Babs saw floating through the air, and she soon afixed a mask over her otherwise normally exposed mouth, covering her own breathing filtered air needs.

Damian would find more graffiti inside the lobby, as kids had assuredly found their way inside at some point. there were what looked like bloody footprints on the floor too, but should Damian inspect them very closely, the blood would turn out to be paint.

Animal feces, broken glass, and toppled furniture line the floors, but for the most part, the place had never been fully furnished, or the furniture had mostly been removed when the place's funding was pulled out.

As he explored, he found himself moving past a meeting room that did have one half of a meeting table, and a bunch of stacked chairs pushed up against a wall. He found the doors to what was once a greenery courtyard, with the courtyard overgrown so densely that it appeared as though Raptors could be hiding inside it, though that might just be pop-culture tainting one's sub-conscious mind.

"I'm done on the third floor, moving down to the second..." Babs' voice quietly said, before falling silent again.

A second or two later, and something suddenly lit up the floors on the western wall. The light cast long shadows across the interior of all three floors, and with a light breath of an exhale, Babs spoke up again.

"Headlights." She stated, what Damian was likely already thinking.

"Drones moving in... It's a white pickup truck. Ford. Has an extended cab. It's circling the driveway..." She whispered.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian takes a moment to study some of the things that he finds. Chief among them are the bloody footprints, but after a moment of testing it turns out not to be dried blood but instead paint. This earns a frown and Damian's quick to move on. It's while he's ascending the steps to the second floor that Robin comes to a halt with Barbara's announcement. On account of his being in the stairwell he hadn't saw the headlights, so the news of them finds him backtracking to the first floor once again.

"I'll maintain position on the first floor," he says with a hand moving to the back of his neck. He'd brought his sword along as a matter of principle, but also because the danger of the mission dictated that he be prepared for the possibility of more violent action than simple knees, elbows, and packed fists might call for.

He stops himself however. Instead of drawing the sword, his hand moves forward to quietly open the door before slipping back into the first floor lobby. A glance up finds the vaulted ceiling and a hasty firing of his own grapple gun finds Robin ascending rapidly toward the ceiling. He releases it in order to allow his momentum to drag itself out and him to visibly defy gravity as his knees bend to absorb the impact of landing up one of the beams supporting the high ceiling. There he lurks in darkness with the blaze of headlights sweeping below as the pickup circles the drive.

From his perch Robin keys up, commenting back to Barbara on the matter of the truck itself, "We have a number on occupants? Are they slowing down? A caretaker, maybe?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"They're slowing down," the whispery voice of Batgirl replied. "They're two people inside the cab, I can't quite..." She trailed off, before speaking up again with confidence. "They're getting out of the truck." The sound of quietly squealing brakes could be heard outside, before the vehicle's engine turned off, and the lights shut off a second later, bathing the place in shadow and darkness again.

"Robin, they have rifles." Babs informed, speaking clearly, and with a calm expertise that hinted at her years of service as the team's dispatcher. The sound of foot steps on the ground outside, crunching on the detritus that littered the parking area confirmed what Babs had said, but the sudden light of a flashlight torch coming on directed attention to directly where the two men were approaching from, right toward the entry Robin had come in through just minutes earlier.

They were talking to each other too, but they were speaking very quietly. Their chatter grew even more quiet as they came up on the doors, and one reached in with the barrel of his gun to pull the door apart, dropping shards of broken glass down to the crusty pavement, as they spread it far and wide enough for them to gain access to the lobby.

"I'm on the roof, right above them." Batgirl said.

The two men shined their lights inside the lobby, before one swept in. He was tall at over 6 feet, with a balding head, and a mustache. The other had greying hair, and a more lithe build, but a noticeable beer gut through his old grey t-shirt.

"I don't like this place, Barret. It's giving me the creeps." The smaller of the two men said.

"You've got a rifle, dumbass. You're the scary one here." His larger, and balder friend said.

Damian Wayne has posed:
"Rifles, understood," is all that Robin offers back. He watches as the headlights cut off and once again bathe the lobby in shadow. The doors opening sounds far louder in such a large, empty space. The voices too. For the moment Robin remains secure in his place in the rafters of the lobby's high ceiling. He does not move, he does not speak. One could even question whether he's breathing. He speaks in barely a whisper. It's a sound that won't make it beyond the rebreather mask that he wears, "We don't know if they're involved yet, disarm and incapacitate, but don't give them a hospital stay."

He pauses only a moment to create a distinct pause before he continues while continuing to watch the man entering below, "Drop on the one in the rear. I'll take the lead."

He gives it a mental count of three before he takes to action. He shifts slightly and it causes the beam to creak beneath his boot. A flashlight blazes toward the ceiling suddenly and illuminates Robin as he drops from above. "What th--!" the lead man calls out as he begins to bring the barrel of his weapon up and aside, trying to line the rifle up on the descending phantom.

He hesitates when he sees the shape of a man and, perhaps to Robin's good fortune or simply his taking the man by surprise, Barret doesn't fire. The dust falling from above peppers Robin and Barret's bald head as the Boy Wonder lands to one side.

He tries to bring the rifle around in a panic, whether it's to strike at Damian or defend himself with it may not be told. Robin doesn't give Barret time to swing the rifle around as Robin ducks low and thrusts a hand upward, sending the barrel of the weapon toward the ceiling.

The immediate danger dissipated for a split second, Damian steps into the guard and sends an elbow cutting upward into the underside of Barret's chin. Notably Robin maneuvers to keep Barret between himself and his thinner, less courageous friend while Damian's busy committing his own misdemeanor assault.

It'll rattle him hard at least or knock him unconscious at best.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara knew Damian well enough, to know that he was not going to let these two guys just wander through the lobby unmolested. She knew he'd strike them both down, hard, if he didn't have backup. she summarily dropped from the roof with a trained ease, a fluid grace, and landed at the lobby entrance, just as the fighting broke out. The men were barely fifteen paces in to the lobby, when Robin came down upon them hard. Barret shouted, and his lithe partner raised his weapon up, to aim upon the shadow!

Damian didn't have to do anything to the second man, though, as Batgirl wrapped one arm around his neck from behind, cutting off his airflow, and reaching around him with her other hand to rip his rifle out of his grasp, with her strength enhanced suit, making it easy to tear the rifle away, and throw it across the room, causing it to smash through a glass window and in to that meeting room that Damian had moved past earlier.

As the glass rained down on to the lobby's floor, Babs pulled the smaller man backward, as he writhed, struggled, and succumbed to the sleeper-hold that Batgirl had him in. She pulled him down on to the ground, and laid his body in to the corner of the lobby's waiting room.

Barret, for his part, just stared up in awe, as he just had his bell rung hard. He saw his brother being drug off in to the shadows by some other dark cloaked figure, and as he had watery tears in his eyes, he fell back on to his shoulders, and waved his hands up at Damian frantically. "Woah, woah, woah!" He shouted in a loud voice, a very loud voice, signaling the tough nature of a man who just took that kind of a hit from the well trained fighter above and before him.

"We're searching for someone, damnit!" Barret called out, his body shaking with adrenaline, and a sheen of sweat coating his reddened face.

Damian Wayne has posed:
The fact that Barret isn't out cold is impressive. The fact that the man's speaking clearly and purposefully is mind-blowing. Damian isn't about to allow surprise to show or alter his next move. Barret falls back and Robin moves to the rifle, pushing it away with a boot that comes down upon it. The weapon clatters and scrapes along the floor deeper into the room and then Robin whirls back to Barret, his fists low but balled. The modulator in his voice makes him sound almost demonic as the Bat growls through a snarl, "Who are you looking for?"

The question is demanded with Damian only a few paces away. A clear bid to keep him out of range of grappling or even Barret's feet kicking out at him. He glances toward the other one that Barbara's dragged away as though she's just about to start whispering soothingly for the man to just go to sleep.

Then it's back to Barret and Damian relents, easing back a touch to ask with the modulation still overlaying his voice, "Start talking or I'll make you talk". Damian isn't nearly the diplomat that Barbara is and it shows in the way that he approaches this particular issue.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
As Barret begins to move, leaning on to his right forearm, his keys partially come out of his jeans hip pocket, a red and white boxing glove hanging from a metal hoop, possibly giving signal to how the large man was able to take that kind of a hit. But, his sheer size was nothing to shake a stick at either.

As he settled on to his arm, he tried to pull himself back a few feet, as he heard the demonic voice, which instilled fear in to even the biggest brute of a man. His eyes shot over to where Barbara had drug his brother off to, and with a labored breath coming from his lungs, he looked back to the Robin.

"Susan. The waitress at the Mug Tavern, down the road from here. She went missing a week ago. Me, and a buncha guys at the bar think..." He breathed out again, trying to catch his oxygen back to normal levels, as he saw Batgirl coming out of the shadow, and looked toward her, and the silhouette she cut in her black and gold armor. "Jesus, Christ..." He stated, seeing the redheaded female Bat lady. "You guys are the... you're the..."

When Babs turned to face him, she made it clear that they were indeed... that.

"Keep going." Babs said, her own feminine voice laced with a demoness intonation.

Barret wetted his lips, and looked back to Robin. "Uh, yeah... uh. The waitress. Kelly. She's a sweet girl. Someone took her after work last week. We told the Cops we think it was a homeless man we saw wandering around here the past year, but they just brushed us off. Said they were already looking in to it... The fuckers didn't even write anything down. they just smirked at us, and told us to not drink and drive." He said, as his brown eyes went from Robin, back to the Batgirl, and back again.

"If the homeless guy took Kelly, he'd probably bring her here, right? He was squatting here. We saw him, Gene and I..." He said, nodding toward the pair of workboots sticking out of the shadow behind Babs' left flank.

Damian Wayne has posed:
The story unfolds and Barret stammers his way along it at times. That fact might otherwise visibly annoy Damian, but the fact that he's wearing the respiration that covers a fair portion of the lower half of his face means that it goes unseen. The hollow depth of his voice coupled with the modulator only serves to make the voice sound even more unearthly and unnatural, "A homeless person is going to have a hard time dragging a kidnapping victim all the way out here," he states firmly. It's clear that Damian has no desire to explain logic to Barret, no matter how big and formidable he might be.

He casts a glance toward Barbara though and for the moment his body language seems to shift, adjusting to the situation as though looking to Barbara had reminded him that he is intended to be helping people. He shifts on his feet and Damian offers Barret a nod, the modulation still present in his voice but the gruffness of it dissipating as Damian seems to apply a little more humanity to his voice, "You're doing the best thing you can, in the best way you now how. The problem is that you could have just as easily ended up another victim if it were the case. Advocate for others, but do it smarter".

Damian's gaze shifts toward the unconscious brother, then back to Barret before he offers a nod, "Does a man named Robert Richards frequent the Mug Tavern?" he asks through the growl of voice modulation. At least it doesn't sound as angry now.

The question is presented and while it would be easy for Damian's full attention to be cast down on Barret, instead he takes a moment to survey his surroundings with a sweep of his eyes to make certain that he's not taken by surprise during his interrogation of Barret.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"Is he... dead?" Barret asked, staring at the other man's boots, that just barely were visible in what dim light came in through the windows on the front of the building.

"No," Babs replied. "He's just asleep. he'll wake up in a few minutes." She quietly said, in her ethereal voice, each word sounding as though two voices were speaking them overtop one another.

When Damian asked his question, the man looked back at him. "Kelly walked near here on her way home. A mile east'a here. We always were offering her rides home, but she never wanted to take anyone up on it. Probably wise, considering the horny fucks that frequent the Mug, but still. None of us wanted to hurt her, we just worried about her. She said the walk is what kept her alive..." Saying this made Barret trail off at the implication.

He raised his eyes back up to Robin's covered own. "Robert Richards...? Doctor Richards? Yeah... He's a regular. Comes in once a month or so. He was going to be the head honcho of this place." He said, motioning around the foyer. "He started showing up at the Mug right around the time this place was nearing completion. Then it all went tits up, and... well, he just kept coming in. Said he liked the service. How do you know him?"

Something hit the ground hard inside the building's depths. Very hard. It reverberated the entire building, and made Barret literally jump in fear. "What the fuck was that?" He asked, with a trembling rattle clear in his voice.

Batgirl, looking in to the darkened hallway, glanced toward Damian, before she started to turn and walk toward the mouth of said hallway. She stopped just outside of it, peering in to the black.

"No movement outside..." Babs muttered to Robin under her breath, as she listened to the darkness of the hallway. "Something's here." She quietly added.

Damian Wayne has posed:
"We don't," comes the answer from Damian regarding Robert Richards and how the Bats and Birds knew him. The implication is enough and it's one that tightens Damian's voice which translates into the voice modulation. The loud noise is enough to bring the interrogation to an end though and the voice that speaks is lower, softer, even if the modulator maintains is menacing quality. "You need to go, just in case. Get your brother and," a glance is sent toward the pair of firearms, nodding once as he adds, "sling your weapons, carry your brother out, and leave. Do not return. Things could have gone much worse for you".

Damian doesn't pause to await confirmation of his instructions reception. He simply turns away with a slight, albeit unintentional, flourish of his cape and falls into step in Barbara's wake.

The quiet words are regarded with only a slight nod. Then Damian reaches up again. This time when his hand closes around the hilt of his sword, he does not hesitate or show uncertainty in whether or not it may be necessary. Now his movements are precise and purpose driven. The blade practically whispers its jubilation as it is drawn slowly from the scabbard that holds it. "Good. Let's investigate," Damian mutters back, though their communication remains between themselves and their closed comm network.

He moves to stand mounted at the side of the door. There he awaits Barbara to open it and clear the way for Damian, and his sword, to take the lead. His breathing calm, relaxed. His sword, ready. Robin's eyes shielded by the opaque lenses built into his mask to permit him greater vision in dark places. He's ready.

The door opens and through it goes Robin with his sword hilt caressed between both hands. The advances with his blade forward in a plow stance, prepared to defend against sudden attacks from his front or side. He advances forward and into the hallway, clearing the way for his partner.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barret doesn't have to be told twice. He rolls on to his side, and up on to his knees. With a hefty hand on his thigh, he pushed himself up, and went to gather up their rifles. With each slung over a shoulder, he moved to his brother side, crouched, and began to smack his cheek repeatedly, whispering stuff to him, as Robin and Batgirl moved in to the dark hallway.

There was another loud bang, that reverberated just like the first did. It sounded hollow, like a metal pool against a sewer pipe. As Batgirl, and Robin, moved further in to the dark, Barret and his brother were up on their feet and making their way out of the power plant's interior foyer, back out in to the night.

"Trying to echo-locate..." Babs muttered in a whisper, as the two navigated down the corridor, past that over grown courtyard again, before they came toward a fire safe door.

Once more, a loud bang echoed through the building, and this time, Babs moved with determination toward the fire door. She pushed it open, and shined a light straight down a long staircase, right in to a pool of water at its base. She frowned. "You just had to be right..." She said to Damian, referencing a comment he'd made, a guess really... about the state of the sub terrainian level of the unfinished facility.

This time, as the loud noise came again, it was much, much more clear, and following it was the muffled sound of a voice in distress. A female's voice, by all rights.

Batgirl didn't hold back now, as she moved down the stairs, one at a time, until her golde boots were sloshing their way in to the water, and her small flashlight was darting left to right.

her light killed any measure of stealth for them, but it was clear she was a bit urgent to find the source of that voice now.

The basement, covered in a layer of dark water that was about a foot deep, had many doorways along the sides of the hallway, and Babs' light was shining through them, reflecting brightly off of the metallic surfaces that trimmed doors, and the edges of the ceiling spaces.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Of course Damian just had to be right. He usually is. At least by his own perception. The rebuttal to the declaration is met by a low murmur from Damian, illustrating his calm in such a tense situation, "I'm holding out for one-armed Asian woman serial killer though. Even if it sounds like Robert Richards may be our suspect". A momentary pause is given and then Damian offers a slight shrug, "Maybe he identifies as a one-armed middle-aged Asian woman". The words are spoken with a slight degree of hope. The idea's farfetched and unlikely, but if it proves to be accurate then it may very well decent Damian Wayne's place as an even greater detective than his father.

It's back to business by the time that Barbara moves into the water, moving quickly and with her flashlight blazing into the darkness. "Don't let emotion send you into an early grave," Damian warns. In other words he's warning her against hasty decisions that could result in her making a fatal mistake.

The distressed cry is alarming and it does cause Damian to move a little faster, but Robin's still taking his steps with care as he submerges up to his shins in the water, taking care not to lose his footing on some long forgotten debris or even a trap laid in the water itself. "It's not as flooded as I expected. I expected the whole level to be submerged to the ceiling," he answers dryly.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Batgirl knew that Damian was right, and the sound of a female in distress made her act a little irrational, and against her training. She acted like a Human, and not like a Bat. That was a rare thing for her to do, and one that Batman would have serious issues with her for having done... But, Batman wasn't here. Her flashlight went off, and her hand snapped to her belt. She grabbed a handful of glow pelletes from her utility belt, and began crushing a few at a time in her right gloved hand, before she tossed them in to the darkness ahead. Was this an improvement? Well, it left she and Robin in darkness, while the green glowing spheres bobbed up and down ahead of them, illuminating the doorways that Babs threw them in to. Each clump of glowing green spheres caused a deep emerald hue to illuminate the room, with most of the rooms being empty storage, or rooms set aside for building ammenities that were never installed, but as they rounded the last turn at the end of the hallway, Babs scattered another handful of the glowing spheres out in to the room's far corners, causing them to splash down in to the dark water, and bob back up to the surface.

A woman was crouched on top of a table, her hands cuffed to a massive metal pipe, with a large metal rod hanging beside her hands from a chain! She had clearly been banging the metal rod against the pipe, through much challenge, to make those loud noises, and now she was staring with shock and fear at the green glowing light all around her, and what the Hell was causing it.

The woman was wearing a torn t-shirt, and no pants. She was on her bare feet on top of the table, with scratches, and marks all over her body. Her left hand was visible most, and one finger was ... gone. it had been bandaged, someone having clearly cared for the amputated region where a finger had been, but even in spite of the missing finger, the woman was awake, and trying to move herself to as safe a place on her exposed table as she could get.

Batgirl started toward her, and subsequently came in to the range of the glowing green light, causing the woman to see he, and react, by moving up and down from her frantic captive position, as though she was terrified of seeing the strange person in strange clothing coming straight at her out of the dark!

"We're here to help." Babs said in a low voice, over the sound of her boots sloshing through the water.

Damian Wayne has posed:
A slight adjustment at Damian's wrist results in his holding the sword within one hand, while two fingers splay out from his grip on the hilt. He tones down the voice modulation without wiping it out entirely. When he speaks, his tone is calm but assertive, "You're Kelly, right? Who did this to you?" He already has a strong guess for the name, but he's keen to hear another speak it. For his part Robin remains in the darkness, though illuminated faintly by the very edge of the emerald green glow. He keeps his distance from the table and the woman. That area is kept clear for Batgirl to approach and see to the matter personally.

Again Damian's grip returns to his sword and he moves to stand aside the doorway. It's clear that he's anticipating the possibility of the culprit's return and stands ready to intercept should the splashing sound of someone hurriedly approaching the door is heard.

The grip on his blade is tight, but ready. His breathing even and slow. He's prepared to strike out at a threat surging through the doorway, yet alert enough to recognize he must identify the threat before he may blindly cleave a head from an intruding body. He waits, he listens. Likely for the answer from the one he's labeled as Kelly for the time being.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The woman's eyes went to Robin, as he asked her for confirmation of her identity. She nodded frantically, before Babs reached for the tape covering her mouth. Kelly looked back to Babs, who still had her full mask covering her face, which made her all the more intimidating to view, but there was nothing the blonde girl could do to stop Babs anyway. The tape was grasped by a corner, and pulled from the girl's face with a quick yank. It left her gasping at having fresh (ish) air to breathe in deeply.

"Get out of the water!" Kelly shouted!

Behind them, a large metal door pulled open, and a man in a black bodysuit, with rubber waders up to his waist, stood at a machine's side. He flipped a switch on the side of the machine, causing it to power on, creating a cacophony of gasoline-powered engine noise down within this enclosed basement.

A power generator.

The man wore a hazmat-style mask, and his arms were hidden inside black rubber gloves that went up to his elbows, as he pulled the electric cable from the side of the generator, and ... tossed it in to the water!

Damian Wayne has posed:
The shout to get out of the water is like someone shouting 'Grenade!' It tends to get someone moving and quickly. Damian's hand is moving to his belt as soon as 'get out' is spoken, because there's only so many ways such a statement can end. The grapple gun fires and the claws embed themselves into the stone ceiling of the basement. The water splashes even as the man appears at the doorway and when he yanks the cable from the generator, only to toss it into the water; Damian's already dangling from the ceiling. The sheer height of the room allows him to dangle without the risk of his long frame dipping toes into the water. He's grown a fair bit over the last few years and tonight that growth could have been a bane, rather than a boon.

He dangles there like a Bat-pinata just waitng for someone to take another sort of bat to him. The sword remains in hand and just as it seems that Damian's not about to put it away, he growls and even that sound is voice modulation into a voice that is straight from the clinging depths of Hell itself. The blade is brought to the scabbard and slid home.

Now it's time to get himself into a more advantageous position and set himself onto who he assumes is none other than Robert Richards.

When an idea springs to mind.

"Robert!" he calls out through the voice modulation, "Look at me!" It's clear that Damian's attempting to draw the attention from the depraved man toward himself, away from Kelly and Barbara. He even extends a hand theatrically toward the man as he calls out, "You don't have to do this!"

He had planned to use his now freed hand to deploy another grapple to allow him to swing free of the electrified water below. Now? Now Robin's developed another idea on the fly. The dangling causes him to begin to lazily spin about. Which would be comical if it weren't for Robin's hand moving rapidly to his side. While he's no Kryptonian or some other supernaturally fast individual; Robin's still fast. The launcher's in hand and firing by the time his last words are shouted out. The goal is a simple one: wrap Robert up in the grapple line and, if necessary, pull with all his might in an attempt to yank the man into the water that he stands before.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Batgirl didn't get out of the water. She was busy trying to remove the bindings on Kelly's hands, and as the electricity hit the water, it hit Batgirl's suit with a lot of force. The cuffs fell from Kelly's hands, and clattered on the table, as Babs' was rocked by the electricity, but she didn't fall. Her suit had been designed to absorbed electrical blasts, ever since her confrontation with Slade Wilson at the Blackgate prison 3 years ago. he had hit her with a powerful electrical attack, and it had shorted out her suit, and deactivated her neural brain chip, which had left her completely in a returned state of being paralyzed. She'd been forced to crawl in to a shadowy corner of Blackate, until Batman had arrived to save her.

She had made those modifications to her suit since then, and they were paying off in the moment, but the continuous flow of the electricity was making her visual display from inside her mask static out, and her breather faulter in its functionality. She was fully sealed inside her suit, though, and she was alright, at least for the time being.

Kelly screamed, loudly, as Robin hung from the ceiling, and the eerie green orbs cast a sickly green illumination around the chamber.

Robin's move, however, paid off, and he pulled hard on the masked man, who had looked up at the Robin just as he fired off that second grapple. Was it Robert? Either way, he didn't speak back to Damian, as he was grabbed, and frantically reached for the generator to hold on, but the moisture on his rubber gloves made him lose grip of the handle on the side of the power generator.

He screamed behind his mask, and was pulled in to the water!

Zap. Zap really hard.

Over the team comms, Babs was trying to speak, but her suit was being interfered with by the power flowing over her form, while Kelly was reeling on the table, trying to get away from Batgirl, who was clearly lit up with power, so much so that tendrils of blue lightning were even flicking between her pointed bat-ears on top of her masked face.

Damian Wayne has posed:
The tug unbalances the masked man and the frantic squeak of wet rubber heralds his doom. The force of the pull results in Damian beginning to twirl even more aggressively. He spins and spins as physics plays its role. Amid the zapping, crackling, snapping, and growling a Robin practically pirouettes on the ceiling overlooking it all. Damian doesn't allow himself time to watch the man's apparent death. Instead he's busy seeing to other, more pressing, matters. The generator is a problem and will remain so until it is disabled.

Midway through his spin he spies Barbara, still standing in the water. He's about to call out to her as he feels his own adrenaline and fear suddenly spike beyond normal levels. Normal levels for him, anyway. For that split second he fears the worst. For a split second he feels failure.

The sound of Barbara attempting to speak however brings his focus sharply back and he calls out, not even bothering with engaging his comms, "Hold on! Both of you!"

He has to wait for his body to spin about one more half-rotation so that he can act. Until then it's simply a matter of waiting for himself and the generator to align properly. He takes in a breath as a hand drops to his utility belt. There it scrambles, trying to locate precisely what it is he'll need. A moment passes and Damian's readied himself. The adhesive gel from one of his sticky-traps will have to do for his purposes. That gel combined with a shaped charge typically reserved for blowing open doors or, in moments of even greater desperation, holes into walls now creates a new tool. An unconventional tool. Batgirl's in danger though and that means unconventional thinking is quite necessary.

The spinning has slowed now, but does continue. He closes his eyes for a moment, centers his mind and takes command of his body. He imagines his target. He imagines his results. His eyes open and his free arm swings forward, his wrist rolls with it, and the gel-slathered charge flies across the chamber lit by emerald green balls bobbing in the water.

The charge connects with the power generator and the thing intended to punch holes in walls or blow doors from their hinges is detonated a moment after it connects with the gel's wet slap. The explosion sounds far more ferocious than it actually is, but it's enough to punch a hole deep into the heart of the generator. The sound of the running generator ceases well before the echo of the explosion begins to dissipate.

There may be human sounds of fear or terror, but at least the sound of the generator and the explosion have drifted away. Robin continues to dangle from the grapple that has embedded its claws in the ceiling above. In the relative gloom of the eerily glowing basement a Robin makes an observation and it sounds rather disappointed.

"Two arms."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
That concussive force from Robin's charge really rattles the entire basement of the unfinished power plant's very foundation. It leaves Kelly screaming, at first, before she is suddenly limp. Not injured, per-se, but the young woman has fainted from all of the chaos around her. She was weak, from a week of being locked away down here, and the torture that the man has put her through, so it can't really be that much of a surprise.

When the blast subsided, and the power generator became an inert pile of junk, the room began to quiet again. The rippling of the water across the floor, and the shifting auras of emerald light - with one of the glowing balls having sidled up beside the deceased man in the rubber gloves and waders. Another of the glow balls was gently bobbing around Barbara's legs, moving around her right knee and in between her legs, as she just stood there in the water.

The power was off, though, and after a moment, Babs leaned forward and put her hands on the table where Kelly was laying. "I'm okay." Babs said over comms, her left hand coming up to pull her breathing mask from her mouth. She let it hang from one side of her mask, and she pulled in some deep breaths through her pink lips. "My suit had to reboot. It was...." She trailed off, as she glanced up at Damian. "it wasn't supposed to lock up like that..." She internally cursed herself, and her faulty engineering. She'd run the tests so many times, but she'd never done it in WATER before. Not this much water, and not this much electricity.

Babs reached both of her hands up to her mask, and pulled her entire helmet off of her head, as she needed to free her face from the mask for the moment. "Thank you, Robin..." She quietly said, as she set the mask down, and began to move closer to Kelly. She began to check for a pulse, and look over her injuries.

"Robin..." Babs said, as she looked over at him, her face lit on one side by the green glow all around them. "Get on the horn, and get the cavalry out here. My comms are down." She said, one hand on the back of Kelley's head, the blonde woman still slumbering seemingly peacefully.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian doesn't speak while Barbara chastises herself on the technological failure. He could launch some barb at her to make what she's already feeling worse. Instead the Son of Batman hangs in silence. The fact that he hasn't even began to grunt or strain speaks to the young man's physicality. Though a feat such as the one he's currently accomplishing would likely be better accomplished and look better with Grayson doing it.

The eerie green glow that's evident upon Barbara's face results in Damian's own hand rising up to remove his mask. He does finally grunt. He strains for a moment as he moves one hand back to tuck the mask away beneath his cape and into his utility belt. After that he moves both hands to hold to his grapple, muttering while doing so, "I had to use my last grapple on our industrial accident". It's not a cry for help. It's not even a request for aid. It's a statement made to simply keep Batgirl informed of his own status.

He doesn't nod, because it's unlikely to be seen in the shadows that cling near the ceiling. Instead he simply answers it, "On it". He grunts quietly as he pulls himself higher. Enough so that the curved nose of his domino mask may be used to key press at a key on his gauntlet. It's a subtle thing. Recessed and requiring rather purposeful effort to press it. The tip of his mask's nose piece presses into the slot. A press of his head and face forward results in the button being pressed and the pressing of that button sends a good deal of information to the Batcave's very own Bat-computer. Who sent the signal, where they're located down to the exact GPS coordinates, assets in the immediate area, and more. A voice issues into his ear. Stern and familiar.

"We're safe for now, but we need help. We have one suspect down and one rescued civilian. Batgirl needs further assistance; alive, but incapacitated for the moment. The water in the room is electrified. We'll give it a few minutes to fade, then I'll drop down and start rendering aid."

It's as much a status report as it is a request for assistance and Robin delivers it as deadpan as one might expect.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
When all was said and done, Kelly had been turned over to the police, and immediately rushed off to the nearest hospital. The man in the basement had been Robert Richards, and he hadn't made it. It was a desperate moment, and the death of the Doctor had unfortunately been required. Had this been a failure of a mission, or a success? Batgirl was blaming herself for how it turned out. She rushed in, she didn't let them take their time, and discover the Doctor's plans. It had been a trap, even if Kelly hadn't exactly had any choice in the setup of it.

Batgirl's suit had come fully back online, by the time the Cops arrived, and on the roof, she monitored the situation below.

Barret, and his brother Glenn, watched from behind the police tape, the two observing from afar, and though they had been relieved to see Kelly alive, both of them had told the police one insistent thing.

"That was not the man who kidnapped her. That was not the homeless man."

It seemed there had been an accomplice, but at least they saved the girl, and took out the Doctor...

Some nights were harder than others.