Second Chances: Artemis

Chapter 16

"Welcome home." Dick said to Thea and Roy when they returned from Star City.

"Thanks. Oh, FYI, my brother knows all about our operations and that's fine since while he was gone, he ended up being trained by the same man who trained Bruce and now he's planning his own crusade in Star City. Don't worry though, I didn't tell him any of your identities." Thea said casually.

"You know what, I'm not even going to ask." Dick said.

"Probably a good idea." Roy said with a chuckle.

"So, what's going on here?" Thea asked.

"Well, Garth and Donna have been going through literally every adoption agency in the city trying to find any record of where their daughter ended up, though it's slow going." Dick said.

"Of course it is. I noticed there haven't been any reports of the Titans returning, so I'm not sure if that's good or bad." Thea said.

"Actually, we might have something. There have been multiple homicides all around the city." Dick said.

"And the reason you haven't been getting involved in this?" Thea asked.

"Because all the victims have been members of different crime syndicates in the city." Kory said as she joined them.

"Okay, that's something that we should be getting involved with immediately, since do the police have any clues on the identity of the assailant?" Thea asked, wondering if someone was taking a play from Helena Bertinelli's playbook.

"Not yet. They're assuming it was just a result of gang violence, since the different groups have been fighting a lot more lately." Kory said.

"Then this is a lot worse than we thought." Thea said.

"I know. Someone's trying to be a Gotham criminal rip off, since this is a typical powerplay a new player in Gotham would make. Turn all the rival families against each other and they start a gang war that razes the entire city to the ground. I've just been trying to figure out who the new player is." Dick said and Thea nodded in approval.

"Any leads?" Thea asked.

"Just this. At every scene, there was this symbol pained in the victims' blood." DIck said as he showed her an image of a red A painted on the street.

"That's that symbol for anarchy." Thea said, wondering if it was who she thought it was.

"I know. And I've been checking every known criminal database for someone who might use that alias, but no luck yet." Dick said.

"So we take a new approach. What criminal organizations has this guy hit so far?" Thea asked.

"So far he's hit the Triad, the Los Halcones, the Cosa Nostra, the Bratva and the McKillens." Kory said.

"Which means the only one that hasn't been hit yet is the Yakuza clan. Which means that all the other syndicates are going to be pointing the finger at them." Thea said.

"What are you thinking?" Dick asked.

"That we need to start keeping an eye on all known residences of the Yakuza clan and all their members and hope that we can use them as bait to draw the real culprit out before something drastic happens." Thea said, literally right as an alarm went off.

"What's going on?" Roy asked.

"We planted sensors on all known Yakuza hideouts and establishments after we realized they were the only ones who hadn't been yet and it looks like there's an attack happening right now." Dick said as Thea summoned her Artemis armor.

"Suit up. We're heading out." Artemis said as Dick and Roy left to change while Kory simply summoned her own purple battle suit, complete with a mask.

"Remind me again why I have to wear this mask?" Kory asked, annoyed.

"Because some of us still have family on Earth we don't want to risk anyone's public identities giving hints to our secret ones. Besides, trust me, I spent my whole life being ambushed by the press, it's not as much fun as you'd think. This way, we can have somewhat normal lives outside of our costumes." Artemis reminded her.

"She's right." Donna said as she and Garth entered the room, both of them dressed in their respective Wonder Girl and Aqualad suits and like Thea and Kory, both of their suits had masks, since they'd already decided to add masks to their suits specifically to protect their daughter for when they found her.

"Okay then, all we need now is Nightwing and Arsenal and we'll be set and we really need to find a way to allow you guys to put your suits on as fast as Kory and I can." Thea said as Nightwing and Arsenal joined them.

"Okay then, time to show San Francisco that the Titans are back. New and improved." Artemis said as they all headed to the elevator to the garage.