Bounce

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Option #2.

Edit: I ran an X-Men RPG for 10 years. It died a slow death, because it was focused on a core group that slowly dwindled until there were fewer and fewer of us. Instead of making 10 posts a day, we were satisfied that 1 post in 10 months was victory, but it wasn't the RP that we'd joined back in 2005.

A core group is important, yes. But without new players the people in the core group just dwindle away over time. And, yes, most of the new players will leave. If you get 3 and keep 1, that's what you want. Because that 1 can step in to fill the void created by the number of people we started with who didn't finish with us.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

G O T H A M C O U N T Y

---

^{Abandoned Farmstead}

The former Boy Wonder managed to hobble his way across the open yard, pressing his back against the side of the barn.

Reaching down with his left hand, the weathered acrobat probed the knee cap. Pain shot through the joint as he tried to massage the tension there. He was going to have a hell of a time moving around with that leg, which was part of what had prompted him to give up the Nightwing identity in the first place.

Peering out from around the side of the structure, Dick surveyed the farmstead. Across, in the farm house proper, he could see lights on. Silhouettes in the windows suggested that a handful of people were mulling about, throwing back drinks. Probably the higher ups of the pecking order. The barn that Dick was scouting was the meth lab.

As Dick crept down the side of the barn, he stayed out of sight of a guy who stepped out for a smoke. The generator supplying power was out the back. The alarm started from within the moment that the generator cut out. The doors to the barn came rolling open, as voices inside complained of the darkness within.

The smoker was the first to arrive at the generator, followed shortly after by a handful of others stepping out to check on the power. Meanwhile, a shadow passed unnoticed from the rooftop overhead.

Edging out from the ledge of the roof, the grizzled acrobat looked around the dimly lit inside of the barn. Rows of tables for cooking up product were juxtaposed by the side where the product was packaged for distribution.

Reaching down to his belt, Dick withdrew a batarang. Unfolding the weapon, he depressed a button in the center to activate the small explosive charge set there. Most of the people had filtered from out of the barn, drifting along the peripheral. It gave him the perfect opportunity to hit the lab itself.

It was a hook shot. Flying in through the top loft, arcing down toward one of the center tables. The batarang gave a flashbang as it struck the table. It wasn’t meant to be a powerful charge, but the spark was enough to set off the volatile chemicals around it.

The fireball blew out both ends of the barn, sending men diving for the dirt as loud curses howled through the air.

Several went running for the cars, where they discovered their friends unconscious and the tires slashed.

The fire ought to get the local sheriff’s attention, but just in case Dick decided to force fate a bit. Flipping open his burner phone, the man dialed 9-1-1 and then casually dropped the phone into the bushes.

The rest ought to take care of itself.

Dick just hoped that Toyboy could take care of himself until Dick could figure just how the hell he was going to get out of here on a bum leg. Let alone navigate a different route back to the main road, so that he could get back to the highway and venture down to the storage facility.

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Gotham Corridor Self Storage
Bludhaven, New Jersey | Present Day

“Psychopath!”

The doll-faced man staggered away from the black-and-red costumed child before him. The short cape framed the boy’s slight frame as he squared off with the much larger figure that was still framed against the door frame behind him.

Anton Schott turned. The camera lens irises holding the reflected image of the man pivoting on his back foot as he prepared to make his retreat. Toyboy’s hand flew to the utility belt that encircled his wait. That much of the Robin outfit was actually vintage, being the same belt that Dick had worn as the original Boy Wonder.

The doll drew the grapple gun from the compact holster that was attached to the belt. With a single, smooth motion, Toyboy leveled the launcher and pulled the trigger. The line whipped outward, striking against Schott’s leg as he brought it down to take that first step. As the grapple wrapped around the man’s legs, he stumbled.

Seizing hold on the line with his free hand, the doll pulled back on the grapple line. The coiled line around Schott’s legs snapped taut. His body weight still shifting forward with the momentum of his halted flight, the self-proclaimed Dollmaker went down hard to the floor.

A feral screech cut through the air, as the torch-armed girl came barreling at Toyboy with everything that she had. The girl’s body slammed into the costumed doll, taking him back a step. As she jumped onto his back, the two other doll-faced boys followed suit.

The grapple line and attached launcher gun went sliding across the floor as it fell from the doll’s grip. His hands were otherwise occupied, fumbling to steady him as the four children spilled onto the floor, with the Toy Wonder pinned beneath a dogpile.

Retracting a hand to the utility belt, the doll used two fingers to fish out a gas capsule. Squeezing that between his thumb and forefinger, a sharp hiss gave the only warning before a haze of white-ash smoke shot out from the pile of children, slowly dissipating away. The three small forms went limp almost immediately, allowing Toyboy the freedom of being able to gently push them off.

When he’d picked himself back up from the floor, Schott was gone.

Toyboy debated pursuing him. A momentary calculus that arrived at its answer in less than a second, but for a robot it was nonetheless a rather lengthy debate. In the end, the children in the cages took priority.

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“Nine One One.”

“...hello?”

“Hello. Are you okay, sweetie?”

“No.”

“Are there any adults there with you?”

“No, but we’re worried that the bad man might come back again.”

“Who is ‘we’, sweetie? Are there other kids there with you?”

“Yeah, we were all on the school bus together when the bad man came.”

“Sweetie, where you do go to school?”

“Bludhaven Elementary. We’re in the fifth grade.”

“Sweetie, I’m sending some police officers to you. Can you describe where you are? What’s the room like?”

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“All Units, be advised, possible hostage situation at the Gotham Corridor Self Storage. All available units proceed to Interstate Twelve. Repeat, all available units proceed to Interstate Twelve. Missing Bludhaven Elementary students are on the line with dispatch and report the scene is clear, but that suspect may be nearby.”

Dick labored to sit in the driver’s seat. His lower back was killing him, his left knee had locked up on him, and his elbow had never forgiven him for throwing that batarang without properly warming up first. As the adrenaline faded from his body, the old man found himself winded just making the trip back to the car.

He’d reclined the seat and just lay there to try and catch his breath, when the call came over the radio.

Chambers called his personal cell almost the same moment.

“What? And the kids called it in?” Dick uttered, feigning surprise.

It was actually easy to do. He’d told Toyboy to observe and then report back. If the doll had actually cracked the case and then thrown wide the gates, more power to him.

Another time, another life, Dick Grayson might never have doubted that Toyboy could have done it. But there was too much of Bruce in him now. He doubted everything. And everyone. Which made being proven wrong satisfying for the notion that his concerns hadn’t been justified.

“Take control of the scene,” Dick uttered, trying to keep the wince out of his voice as he popped his seat back to the usual position and then started the cruiser. “I’ll be there shortly.”

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Marvelous... uh... that is, Wonder...

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

G O T H A M C O U N T Y

---

^{Abandoned Farmstead}

The tourists visiting the old farmstead piled out of some expensive rides. Cadillac Escalades. Lincoln Navigators. Even a Porche Macan. It was a lot of money to be out in the unincorporated parts of Gotham County. Especially a zip code where the median income was below the national poverty line.

Shrugging off his duster, the former Boy Wonder stalked through the corn as he wound his way to a strategic vantage point from which to observe the group arrive and then disembark their vehicles.

This was most likely a pick up. The bulk of the groupies were straggling inside of the farmstead. They’d likely be back with their arms full of high flammable product.

For the last twenty years, Dick’s Nightwing suit had remained unchanged. He’d experimented with red iconography once upon a time, but it hadn’t stuck. The bird symbol emblazoned across the chest was in the same muted shade of blue. One thing was different though, as the trousers had clearly shrunk. Maybe it was the wash. Or the spandex just hadn’t held up over time. Whatever the case may have been, Dick’s lower half was dressed in a pair of comfortable sweatpants.

They may not have been the most stylish thing that Nightwing could have worn, but Dick was certain that he’d never had a costume that was this comfortable.

Removing the glasses that he wore for driving at night, the man pressed a domino mask against his face. As it slid into place, the eye slits became faintly illuminated as the lens took over, supplying a HUD interface that also corrected for Dick’s aging vision.

He’d definitely have to pop an Advil later.

He burst from out of the cornfield without a single sound. His movements were not the lithe, acrobat finesse of his youthful years. Now, he moved more like Bruce had. Float like a butterfly, sting like a Batman.

He took down the first goon with a single hit, ducking and weaving as the confusion allowed him time in which to take the second with a two-hit combo. The third managed to clear his gun from out of the waistband of his jeans, but it slipped to the ground with the safety still on as Dick’s fist connected with the man’s face.

“Arghhh,” the Nightwing growled under his breath. As he stepped into that last punch, he tried to flex his knee and felt the joint lock up on him. Arthritic pain shot up his leg, radiating at the hip even as Dick’s shoulder began to ache.

He was officially too old for this.

Leaving the goons on the ground, Dick started to move across the yard toward the barn. As he did, he pulled out his burner phone and tried to dial Toyboy again.

Caller not available.

Just what was that robot up to?

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Gotham Corridor Self Storage
Bludhaven, New Jersey | Present Day

The Toy Wonder took another step back.

Anton Schott, face obscured behind the head of a porcelain doll that he was wearing as a mask, continued to loom over the red-and-black attired Robin. “I’ve done everything in my power to help the little one’s survive in this sad, cruel world,” the man declared, arms outstretched as though to indicate the rows of kennel-like cages in which children were huddled and dirty.

Now fully illuminated, the interior of the room told a very different story. Table tops and tools bore the evidence of blood stains. Parts of bodies were visible in trash cans.

“Survive?” the doll tossed back at his former master and confidant. Taking a step forward, the young-looking Robin at last stopped his retreat and instead stood his ground as he angrily answered, “There are dying children in these cages!”

“Some had to sacrifice so that others could live,” Anton barked, gesturing wildly. His hand grabbed hold of a length of chain that was dangling from the ceiling. Slowly, the man pulled on the chain. Toyboy could hear the sound of a pulley system, his eyes glancing up and then to the side as he tried to determine the mechanism at work.

“As children they are helpless. But, as dolls no one can ever hurt them again.”

From the corners of the room, shadows were starting to emerge. Small, thin silhouettes that revealed themselves to be feral children as they came into view.

They had the same mask, wearing the blissful expression of a porcelain doll over their faces. Some still had all their fingers and toes. Others had their limbs replaced with weapons.

“Not even you!”

Schott’s taunt was almost lost, the man’s voice drowned out by the sound of two buzz-saws whirling to life. A boy charged at the doll. His forearms had been amputated at the elbow, replaced with mitre saws in place of his hands. The feral child was snapping and spitting at the Toyboy, as he slashed at the doll with broad sweeps of his arm.

There was a rush of air. From the corner of his peripheral vision, Toyboy was aware of a girl whose left forearm had been replaced with an oxy-acetylene torch. Aiming that out at Robin, the hiss of compressed gas heralded the flame.

Lashing out with his leg, Toyboy kicked the Saw-Boy in the chest with sufficient force to lift the child off his feet and knock him several feet through the air. The stream of flames shot out at him the next second, as the Toy Wonder took shelter behind the nomex cape.

He pulled a batarang from the utility with his free hand. Logic processors were compiling data, composing an actionable sequence that would adequately address the present threat. He needed to sever the oxygen line on the Torch-Girl’s arm. The batarang should be sufficient for the task, though the trajectory of attack would require fifteen-pounds-per-square-inch of force with a thirty degree angle of attack.

There were also two more feral children circling around to advance behind him. As he threw the batarang, the pivot motion would supply leverage from which he could cartwheel out of the line of attack, pushing one child into the other.

It was a design that took Toyboy precisely 0.485 seconds to compose.

Sliding on his back foot, the doll dropped his cape and then stepped through into the motion of tossing the batarang. The wing tip bounced harmlessly off the metal of the girl’s arm, but the rubber tube was pinched and ruptured, prompting her shrill yelp as the torch blossomed out in a fireball.

Stepping with the motion of the flow, Toyboy’s body followed through into a cartwheel that took him off center, two feral children colliding in the spot where Robin had been just a moment earlier. Shoving the two of them off to the side, Toyboy’s attention was distracted by the return of Saw-Boy.

Reaching up with his left hand, Toyboy grabbed hold of the boy’s mitre saw arm. The pair struggled for a moment, before Toyboy had his right hand on the boy’s other arm as well.

Pulling the Saw-Boy toward him, Toyboy pitched forward so that their foreheads connected. The Saw-Boy went limp as he was stunned, guided down to the floor as the doll turned his attention back to the son of his creator.

“Psychopath,” the boy snapped, in an uncharacteristic bout of anger.

This time, it was Anton Schott who took a step back.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

You're not a wizard, though!

@Inkarnate

With the Speed Force, he could be.

Thawne best Sorcerer Supreme.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

It's not Marvelous Monday without Baal.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

B L Ü D H A V E N

---

^{First Citizen’s Bank & Trust | February 8th, 1985}

Most people tried to be as unobtrusive as possible when robbing a bank.

Others rolled out the fanfare.

The marionettes marched through the doors. Trumpeters heralded the two column approach of life-sized nutcrackers and toy soldiers, as a little drummer boy danced and spun in the center of the formation with a jovial giggle as he beat a happy tune against the small marching drum that he carried.

The wooden toy soldiers split off into a firing line, rifles held out toward the row of bank tellers. The people inside the bank were screaming and scurrying out of the path of the nutcrackers, whose jaws snapped back and forth while they brandished wicked looking scimitars.

With a jaunty step, the little drummer boy did a pirouette and then flipped over the partition that separated the customers from the tellers. Beating out a melody on his drum, the Toyboy sauntered over to the safe that was recessed into the back part of the bank. Unslinging his drum, the child-like doll set the drum against the front of the safe. Then, executing a series of backflips, vaulted away from the safe.

An explosion ripped through the air, sending tremors through the building that brought everyone inside down onto their hands on their knees. The automatic fire extinguishers kicked in, spraying water through the interior of the bank.

Through the rain, the smoke, and the haze, a childish laughter trickled with bubbly mirth. “The Toyman’s toys aren’t just expensive, you might say they break the bank!”

The movement was almost imperceptible.

The toy soldiers went down first, bowled down like pins that were scattered as they rolled around on the floor. The nutcrackers were next, flashes of a dark attired figure cast as a silhouette among the smoke.

A scimitar rattled as it slid across the floor toward the little drummer boy’s feet. “What?” Toyboy chirped, still holding onto his drum sticks, as he looked down, then around to his left and right. He seemed to have significantly fewer toys now than he thought that he ought to. “Hey!” the doll exclaimed, snapping his head up as he said firmly, “I was playing with those!”

Twirling a pair of batons, the former Boy Wonder stood in the center of the bank. Attired in varying shades of blue and gold, the dark haired man in the mask merely looked out at the pouting child-like figure and noted, “The psychopaths just keep getting younger.”

“That’s okay,” the doll chirped. With a surprising dexterity that would have belonged inside the family of the Flying Graysons, the child-like figure executed a cartwheel toward Dick. Holding out his batons in a defensive posture, the man was surprised when the drum sticks struck against his guard with sufficient force to push him backward. “I can just play with you instead!” the doll boasted in the same sing-song voice.

Holding up his block, Dick dropped his center of gravity. He performed a leg sweep, but the nimbly nymph jumped out of the way.

Something wasn’t quite right, though as Dick found himself getting into a game of back-and-forth, trading blows, between batons and drum sticks... he found he was having a hard time placing a finger on what was nagging at him.

Then it hit him. The boy -- if it even was a boy -- wasn’t looking at Dick. Not his face anyway. Instead, it almost seemed like it was studying him. Evaluating? As Dick moved, the child-like figure seemed to respond and anticipate how that movement would guide Dick’s next move.

He was being analyzed.

That didn’t seem human. Was this... another toy?

“Hey, Mister, what’s your name?” the drummer boy remarked. Vaulting over Dick’s head, the doll landed atop the teller window and continued sparring with Dick from there.

Dick was definitely starting to get the feeling that he was being toyed with. “I’m not ‘sposed to talk to strangers,” the doll continued, babbling on like a real child might have. “But, if you tell me your name then we won’t be strangers anymore!”

Dick tried a feint, snapping out with a sweep of his arm that he’d hoped would have struck the legs out from under the doll. Instead, Dick felt a kid-sized foot land on his face, as the doll nimbly sprang across to the other side of the bank lobby. A bubbly, giggling laughter seemed to accompany his movement.

The man grit his teeth. Now, he was starting to get irritated. “I think you need a nice long talk with a judge down in juvenile hall,” Nightwing snapped, as he spun to turn and face the little hellspawn.

The little drummer boy just shot a Dick a devil-may-care grin. Then, the doll craned his head toward the door to the bank. A second later, the sound of police sirens reached Dick’s ears.

“This playground’s starting to get crowded,” the drummer boy stated, before vaulting back toward the exit. As he cartwheeled out onto the steps, the doll gave Nightwing a jaunty salute as he added, “Hey, mister, let’s play again sometime!”

Standing there, water pooling around his ankles, Dick waded through giant wooden toy soldiers and knife-wielding nutcrackers. And may have just fenced Pinocchio. “Just when I thought that I’d seen it all,” he muttered under his breath.

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Gotham Corridor Self Storage
Gotham County, New Jersey | Present Day

The bubbly giggle echoed faintly. Glimpses of a small shadow seemed to play along the peripheral as the costumed doll ventured through the self storage yard. The place had been shuttered for the last six years, the units weathered but seemingly shut tight. Upon cursory review, Toyboy would have estimated that the facility was well and truly defunct.

That was before he’d turned a corner and seen the bus.

It was the type of short school bus that was known as an A-type frame. The underlying drivetrain was a Ford E-450. The wheelbase was precisely 138 inches, with a curb weight of approximately 5,000 pounds. The precise details that he had observed at the crime scene on Route 16.

Popping open the side door, the Toy Wonder slipped inside of the bus for a closer inspection. Visual inspection in the ultraviolet spectrum revealed traces of blood.

The trail led him to a nearby storage unit. The garage-style rolling door was not secured. Tugging at the underside of door, Toyboy rolled the door up part way. The interior was spartan, with a hole cut into the floor.

There was something underneath the storage facility.

He likely had enough observations to report back to Mister Grayson now. As he started to lower the door, the Toyboy stopped. Holding perfectly still, the doll waited as he listened.

There was a sound. The decibel level was extremely low. But the pitch was in the range of normal child vocalization. Holding himself like a statue, Toyboy remained that way until he had determined that the sound was that of a child sobbing.

Dick’s directive that he should observe and report was immediately rescinded.

Once upon a time, Toyboy had hesitated to do something when a child had been sobbing, because an authority figure had told him to stand down.

It had been a mistake.

It was a mistake that did not bear repeating. Rising up to his feet, Toyboy cast the door to the storage facility open. Approaching the hole in the floor, the doll was aware that this was precisely the jumping into something half-assed that Mister Grayson had specifically warned again.

He’d jumped into something half-assed one other time before, and saved five lives. Even if he saved only one then he was willing to accept the repercussions for his decision. “Hero time,” the boy uttered, as he jumped down into the hole.

He descended into Hell.

Shifting between different bandwidths of the visual and electromagnetic spectrum, the Toy Wonder peered through near perfect darkness and found himself in a room filled with large cages. It was like a kennel.

Only the animals shacked inside of them were children.

There was movement in all but two of the cages. The sound of the sobbing brought the Toyboy over to where a girl in pigtails was rocking herself in a fetal position. “Can you hear me?” the boy whispered. He was analyzing the door to the cage. “It’s going to be okay...”

“Your... worried... about the little ones?”

The boy’s short cape furled about, as Toyboy reared up and turned to face the direction of the voice. The lights were switched on, momentarily flooding the android’s visual cameras. Blinking, the robot was blind as he re-calibrated for brightness.

“Don’t be.”

The same voice. Audio recorders were starting to dissect and analyze for identifying characteristics. Speech pattern. Voice onset time. As the Toy Wonder opened his eyes, the lenses focused on the figure on a man wearing the face of a porcelain doll as a mask. “You see, I love them. More than you could ever know,” the man stated.

Recognition triggered as the pattern of speech found a near match. “Anton?” Toyboy uttered aloud.

Advancing toward where the Toy Wonder stood in the center of the kennel, the doll-faced man said, “Anton Schott died when he was a boy. When the monster took away his innocence.”

As the man stepped forward, Toyboy found that he began taking steps back. As the man spoke of lost innocence, the toy’s memories of Hinkley Creek were triggered. A litany of mistakes played back with perfect clarity.

Holding out his arms, the son of the Toyman declared, “I’m not Anton. I am the Dollmaker.”

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

G O T H A M C O U N T Y

---

^{Gotham Corridor Self Storage}

“That’s not the suit that I asked you to alter.”

The air rushed by. The reverberation of the motorcycle radiated through the doll’s body, filling the night with a dull roar. The bike was a modified 1971 Triumph Daytona that had originally been used by Bruce Wayne as part of a publicity stunt, before it had been passed to Dick for use when he’d become a teen. The blue paint was factory, with the only emblematic addition being a muted Robin ‘R’ symbol.

The so-called Robin Cycle had been sitting inside one of the safehouses that had functioned as one of the many fallbacks to the Bat-Cave that were strategically placed in the event that Bruce had to shift operations. Converted from an old warehouse, it was owned by a dummy company that was tangentially connected to one of the Wayne Group businesses. Dick had used it as his headquarters when he’d first arrived in Bludhaven, before buying and converting the apartment over.

Amazingly, slapping in a new battery and putting some gas into the engine had worked. When this was over, Dick was probably going to have to replace the plugs and hoses if this kept up however.

His comment, of course, was not directed at the bike so much as it was the current operator. A short cape fluttering in the wind behind the small driver. While flashes of yellow marked the underside of the cape, the predominant color was black. The short sleeves, the trunks, the gloves, and the boots were all black. Gone was any hint of green. The yellow was significantly downplayed, relegated now only to the R symbol and the underside of the cape. The body and legs were both red, but a far more muted tone than the bright colors that Dick had sported.

“If I had to guess, based on the color scheme and quality of the polyester fibers, then I would say that the previous Robin suit was designed in the late Nineteen Sixties,” Toyboy remarked, quite astutely delivering a proverbial slap across Dick’s ear drums.

Unlike Dick, Toyboy’s vision was inhuman. The lighting had been removed from the motorcycle, as the dark shadow shot down Interstate-12 in completely blacked out conditions. On this part of the interstate, the traffic was light. By the time anyone thought that they saw something, the bike was already vanishing back into the darkness. This ensemble is much more durable and appropriate to the post-modern child superhero,” the doll added, easing back on the throttle of the motorcycle as he approached the turn. Sliding into neutral, the android boy allowed the bike’s speed to bleed away before neatly executing the turn from off the asphalt onto the dirt county road. “The use of black is apparently associated with something that the internet identified as ‘edgelord’,” the Toy Wonder remarked candidly, noting, “This is reportedly a popular trait with tweens.”

If it was possible, Toyboy could hear the facepalm through the Bluetooth earpiece that was clipped to the side of his head. “Popularity with the eight to fourteen crowd wasn’t exactly what I was going for when I was Robin.”

Sliding the bike into third gear, the doll rocked the throttle as the motorcycle underneath him gave a dull roar while the tires bit into the dirt. “Perhaps a reason why the identity has failed to attract a successor in recent times,” the simulacrum chirped brightly. Soft notes of mirth concealed what seemed like a faint echo of giggling as he’d said it.

“All right, you’re coming up on the storage facility. Maintain radio silence unless absolutely necessary,” Dick’s voice noted. In recent time, Dick had planted a GPS tracking device on the Robin Cycle and the Redbird, just in case someone stumbled upon the old Bat-Bunker. “Remember, for this outing it’s surveillance only. Observe and report. I’ll check out the barn and then we’ll compare notes before we jump into something half-assed.”

Easing off the throttle, the doll slid the bike back into neutral. Slowly coasting along the rough road, the bike rolled to a stop just outside the fence that surrounded the confines of the storage facility. “Observe and report. Don’t jump into anything that’s not full-ass,” the boy supplied, his voice betraying the childish giggle at the word ‘ass’. Then, the line dropped as the boy said brightly, “Got it!”

Pushing the motorcycle off the road, the doll concealed it into the brush and removed his helmet. A black domino mask dressed the front of his face.

A light litany of boyish laughter trickled through the air. Taking off in a sprint, the android closed the gap to the fence and then neatly performed an acrobatic leap from the ground. Performing a twist in the air, the small figure landed on his feet on the other side of the barrier and then sprinted toward the nearest structure.

As he did, he uttered under his breath, in a sing-song voice, “Na na na na na na... Robin!”

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“Got it!”

He had a bad feeling about this. Glancing down at his cellphone, Dick tried to ignore the knot in his stomach and just put the phone in his coat pocket.

He was in a different part of I-12, taking his unmarked police cruiser through a county road that was little more than a one-way path carved through cornfields. He was way outside of his jurisdiction in this part of the county. Proper decorum required that he contact the sheriff to let hi know that he’d be stepping out into his jurisdiction, especially if he was collecting evidence for an official Bludhaven Police Department investigation.

Except Dick knew just enough about the Gotham County Sheriff to know that call would do more harm than good.

First rule of being Nightwing: It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

He’d found an empty field that was a short distance away, leaving the car and crossing through the corn toward the foreclosed farm.

At first, he’d almost missed the acrid scent in the air. Recognition was gnawing at the back of his brain, but he was distracted by the vibration in his coat. He tapped the side of his bluetooth ear bud. “Grayson,” he answered shortly.

“It’s Chambers,” the voice on the other end of the call announced. “I ran the victims from the Ninety-Six case and found that there is one still here. I’m on my way to see if I can get an interview tonight.”

So she’d found Chambers. “Solid plan,” Dick stated quietly. Peering through the stalks, the man gauged the empty path toward the farm before he ventured out from cover and into the open.

“Blackgate is getting me the names of all inmates who have been released that they think Helzinger would have spoken with.”

That would be a start to growing their list of suspects. “Run that first thing in the morning,” Dick remarked. Then a pause. “What about Ellsworth?”

“So, that’s the thing,” Chambers’ voice remarked. That statement caused Dick to stop short, even before he heard, “What led you to think that Schott was moved to Ellsworth?”

“He’s not at Ellsworth,” Dick uttered, feeling a foreboding sense of dread wash over him.

“They say that they’ve never heard of him.”

Now this was making perfect sense. The knowledge about the abductions. The motive. It had been Anton Schott.

And Dick had just sent Toyboy to face him. “Shit.”

“Commissioner?”

“I’ll call you back,” Dick replied, hanging up. Digging through his pocket, the man snatched the phone out. Unlocking it, the man began to cycle through the calls to find the burner that he’d given Toyboy.

A sound caused Dick to stop, his finger poised over the call button.

It was a car engine.

Several car engines.

He turned his head just in time to see headlights shining through the corn stalks, as several cars wound their way toward the farm.

Blocking the road that could take him to I-12. And, more importantly, headed toward the so-called abandoned farm. Where the smell told him everything he needed to know.

He’d just stumbled across a meth lab.

“God... fuck.”

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Requested by @Lord Wraith in Discord.