Chapter 14: Search/Last Laugh

Blindside, Raven, Batman, and Robin left the Batmobile at the docks, splitting up into pairs to search so they could meet up in the middle with the other group. Keith ran on his redlight platforms with Raven flying next him as he ran. "I'll be listening for straining wrist muscles, faint muffled noises in the case of a gag, or the sound of a sicko's voice talking to someone and referring to that someone as a hero or a bat. Let me know if you see anything." She nodded and they resumed their path.

Keith didn't hear anything for probably an hour and a half. During that time, he and Raven exchanged very brief conversation, but that was about it. Then, he heard it. Joker laughs. His head snapped in its direction and his platforms changed direction. "This way!" He sprinted, using his Lantern flight to get over any buildings that were expressly in his way.

When he and Raven got there, he peeked in from a reinforced skylight. He groaned. "Dammit." He pulled a communicator out from a small pocket of his new suit and got Bruce on the line. "Hey, it's Keith. We found her. This Joker already has some goons. And I heard some ramblings, and it sounds like they're waiting for you." Bruce responded and Keith nodded. "Ok. Sounds good." He hung up and put away the communicator. "He'll play along with their scheme, and while they're distracted, we bust in and handle shit." Raven nodded and they both hunkered down on the roof to wait.

It wasn't long until Bruce got there. The instant he did, however, a bulletproof glass pane dropped down between him and the dungeon-esque room that Batgirl and the goons were all in. She was tied to a chair, as most hostages are, with a gag firmly keeping her quiet. The only reason she wasn't screaming through it was because she saw Keith and Raven briefly on the roof.

That was, until the new Joker said something that made her blood go cold. "Ahhhh Bats, how nice to see you again! I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this." There was a small fit of giggles before he continued. "I just wanted to invite you here so that, as you suffocate on poisonous gas in that section of the building," The entrance that Bruce went through slammed and sealed shut. "you can watch through slowly shutting eyes and fading consciousness as my new, depraved goons...introduce...themselves to Batgirl. It's gonna be one helluva finale."

At the same time that Barbara's blood had run cold, Keith's had begun boiling and fresh rage was building up. Just as the goons began to approach he flew straight up, about 200 feet, before flying directly downward and bashing through the skylight, right over Joker 2.0's head. He planted a heavy kick into the back of his head, pushing him away and temporarily out of the fight, and turned to focus on the goons that were now much more focused on Keith. As Keith dealt with them, Raven focused on untying Batgirl, kicking the shit out of 1 or 2 goons while she was at it.

Keith was practically a blur, red energy raging around his hair, as he spun a steel staff and a redlight staff at the same time in separate hands, smashing 1 into either side of a goon's head before sweeping the legs of another with the left and jabbing into their throat with his right. Hearing a goon behind him, he pulled a tight backflip, tucking his legs as he went, and slammed both staffs into the goon's shoulders, one on each sight, brutally dislocating his arms and shattering both sides of their collarbone. He spun to his right, his redlight staff nailing a really hittable jaw, shattering it, and he ducked low to sweep that same thug's legs. The sound of a head bouncing off of a concrete floor rang out a bit, before Keith manifested a redlight frisbee disc of sorts and chucked it out into the room. It took a second, but on its return arc, it nailed a thug in the side of the head who was creeping towards an unaware Raven who was busy untying some actually very good knots. The goon grunted, provoking a black and white outline of a fist crashing downwards into him.

And like that, all of the goons were done, and Batgirl was free. Batman had produced respirators for him and Robin, but they wouldn't last forever. Keith rolled his shoulders for a second. "I can try to bust through this, but it's gonna take me quite awhile." He chucked a manifested brick at Joker V.2 which knocked him out. "Look for ventilation or something that we can reverse the flow with or something."

Raven and Barbara both looked around, as Keith did running shoulder tackles into the bulletproof glass. Since he was fueling it with his lantern power and his enhanced skeleton, he was actually making some headway. But not nearly enough. Keith narrowed his eyes into the room Batman and Robin were in and nodded to himself. He did a bit of sign language at Bruce. "I see a ventilation shaft behind you. It's just really high up and in the shadows. Hopefully it leads to somewhere less polluted with that gas. Once you're out, I can make a fan or something to maybe get it out, but then we still have to get the hell out of here." As soon as he signed "get the hell out of here", the door to the area Bruce and Tim were in got busted down by a massive red hammer. On the other end, Harley Fucking Quinn.

She stood there covering her face with her arm, and her other hand on her hip. "Well? Ya gettin out or what?" Nobody questioned it at the moment, so Bruce amd Tim got out while Keith, Raven, and Batgirl just left through the broken skylight.

Before the three got back to Bruce and Tim, Batgirl stopped them for a second. "Hey...thanks for getting me out of there. Both of you." She nodded at Keith with the last bit of that, subtly acknowledging her more positive viewpoint of him now, and she left to catch up with the others. As she did, Keith noticed, out of the corner of his eye, something peculiar.

"Rave, sweetie, honey, why are you watching Batgirl's ass?" Rachel blushed heavily before he pouted.

"I'm slowly realizing that I may be a little bit bi." Keith's eyebrows went up a little, just as his sexual deviant side smirked and plotted. The rest of the night was normal.

Keith made dinner for he and Raven at his apartment and then they went to bed. And by "went to bed" I do mean they went to sleep. Ya nasties.