It had been rather windy that night; unusual, even for such a gloomy city, a city shrouded in terror.
It had been rather windy that night; even for such a gloomy city.
Mixed with the shadows, the sound of the salty waves crashing against the pier, the bustling city sounds, the astounding lights, and the crispy night air, it was a magnificent view.
Though, if you even knew the half of it, the once-beautiful city turned into a nightmare, a maze with no escape, a battle never won.
Gotham always was the center of the war; the war between good and evil, that is. The masked vigilantes that fought the good fight, against those whose greatest goal was terror and destruction. Eventually, the lines blurred together, something that the citizens of the beautifully terrible city had grown accustomed too. And with the madness, they embraced it, in actuality. They realized there was no good without evil, no light without dark, no order without chaos, no organization without madness.
It was this that caused them to stay, to try and either help or destroy the city. Some were just there for the money; no matter the outcome, they didn't care as long as they satisfied they're greedy mind. Some stayed out of hope; hope that order could be restored and they wouldn't have to barricade they're windows and doors at night. Just the simply reality smacked them all in the face at times; Gotham was the home of madmen, and the symbol of the world's hope.
These thoughts surrounded a teen girl watching over Gotham harbor's shipping area. She wished she had the beauty of being innocent again; oblivious of the world's sins and chaos. Though, that is to say that she was ever innocent in the first place.
She couldn't exactly say she was one of the people fighting the good fight, but she couldn't say she fought only for madness and destruction to rule. No, she fought for whatever side offered her the most, the side that was desperate enough to come to her.
Apparently, Lady Knight was the only one who could complete the job. That was a lie, that she knew, but 20,000 dollars assured no questions.
She watched the cargo ship which carried her objective slowly steer into the harbor, where there were at least 25 armed guards that seemed like complete idiots to her, thinking they could handle the weapons they grasp correctly, like someone who had used them all their life.
A slight misdirection in the wind turned her senses on high alert. Normally, she wouldn't care about this at all, since the Gotham wind blew in every different direction, but she was in a high roof-top meaning the Gotham wind only switched direction every once in a while.
Someone placed their hand on her shoulder, roughly turning it to face the other direction. Lady Knight was ready for this; reflexes do pay off she's learned, and held a throwing star to the throat of her unknown assailant. Her assailant either anticipated this, or they were already planning on putting a katana to her throat.
'An unavoidable annoyance. That's all.' Lady Knight thought as she narrowed her eyes, analyzing her future opponent.
Said person had turned out to be a make, around her age, Lady Knight deducted. He had a scowl and mask not unlike her own, with a cape and hood that were black on the outside, while yellow on the inside. He also had a red armored uniform, with an infamous 'R' logo that made Lady Knight's job that much harder. In addition to that, he had black pants that went surprisingly well with the bright green boots that had red laces adorning his feet.
How she managed to analyze this much with a katana pointed to her throat and a throwing star pointed to Batman's infamous partner, she didn't know.
"Is this supposed to intimidate me? If I remember correctly, Batman does not allow any of his partners to kill," Lady Knight asked, her tone icy and cold, much like the Gotham bay at this time of the year.
Robin growled, and his scowl deepened, which should be impossible in itself. Instead of acknowledging her comment any further, he asked a question of his own; "Who are you?"
Lady Knight let out a laugh, though it was a bitter sweet one, and answered, "Lady Knight, at your service! Actually, not your service, but whoever hires me."
Robin seemed to ponder on the name, most likely racking his memory to find a connection to her name and a file on the Bat-Computer of his. This gave her the time she needed to move out of the range of his katana, and to turn the direction of her throwing star to hit his leg, to which he responded by yelling a few words that most definitely inappropriate in a language that Lady Knight recognized as Arabic.
'Huh. Maybe he trained with the League? It explains why Robin used a katana, and why he knows Arabic.' Lady Knight thought as she ran, before realizing that she didn't have much space before the roof-top ended and she had to jump onto the ground, which was 28 feet down, mind you.
She cursed softly under her breath, and took a breath as she jumped off the building, spreading her arms out like a bird would as she listened to the familiar sound of the wind in her ears before snapping back to reality, tucking and rolling as to not break her ankles on the impact of the ground.
After getting up from that, she ran until she came across at least half the men she was supposed to stop, who were off guard and talking.
"These guys are dumber than I thought. Who the hell leaves the safety on a gun anymore?" Lady Knight muttered as she ran straight into the group of men, who looked at her with shock evident in their features before apparently coming to their senses and fumbling with the guns in their hands.
Lady Knight used that distraction to grab a match and light it. What the thugs didn't realize was that the alcohol they were bringing and spilling had made a line connecting to each one of them, and alcohol was almost as flammable as gasoline.
Before dropping the match, Lady Knight whispered what would be the last words the thugs ever heard besides screams of agony, "Burn bitches, burn."
By the time all the things were on fire, Robin had come back into Lady Knight's field of vision, so she started running towards where the rest of the men were.
The other groups of men, which she couldn't exactly call a group of men, since there were a few women included in the mix, were much more alert. They probably weren't before Lady Knight had set fire to their friends, but that was a subject matter for a different time.
They may have been much more alert and ready, but that didn't mean they were any smarter. They still had the safety on the guns, making it obvious the bunch was new to the Gotham drug trade. Guess they haven't met the bat yet! Then again, neither has she, and she doesn't plan to anytime soon. Too much effort for too little money.
"Excuse me, yeah; I'll see you in hell!" Lady Knight shouted, knowing that the people unloading the cargo couldn't hear, and this was the last group of guards so she didn't have to be quiet. Like she was with the first bunch.
While moving and saying these, Lady Knight was also hitting them in their arms, legs, head it heart with her throwing stars, which were engraved with the initials 'LK' so everyone knew these dead idiots were her victims. Good for getting praise in the criminal's underworld, not so much when it came to the Justice League and the inferior police.
Robin couldn't enter the mess of things and a mercenary-for-hire without having to dodge bullets, and crowbars. Some of the thugs had successfully gotten the safety off and were now shooting at both Lady Knight and Robin, while some just gave up in the confusion and grabbed the nearest deadly projectile, which happened to be crowbars.
"Can't get me now!" Last Knight laughed, before pulling out a concealed dagger and stabbing a woman who was getting a little too close for her liking.
When she pulled her dagger back out, the sticky substance known as blood coated it, though only lightly as she had barely nicked the women's shoulder, but one it was enough to kill the women since Lady Knight always likedto be prepared and had poison coating her daggers and throwing stars. Sucks for her victims, but her, not nearly as much.
Robin, in the corner of her eye Lady Knight saw, had entered the battle and was lashing out with his katana in non-lethal areas, something Lady Knight would've reprimanded had she not been doing with her own mess of idiots at the time.
Now that she thought about it, wasn't there originally 25 thugs? She set fire to about 10, and had killed at least 8 of the people in this group, while Robin at least 7, which made exactly 25, though Lady Knight was currently dealing with 12 men in total, Robin 8. Where were they coming from?
That's when it dawned on her, these guys weren't regular street thugs, she would've defeated and them by now if they were, they were hired guns who were acting dumb to make it SEEM like they were regular idiots. No, they were trained idiots.
Now, Lady Knight wasn't getting paid enough to deal with hired guns, but since she already got herself into the mess, she would have to confront Penguin about it later, right now she had to fight.
Somehow, and against her will, Robin and she had moved back to back, slashing and slicing at the not-so-normal thugs that were causing them so much trouble. Somewhere along the line, Lady Knight had also taken the twin katana of the one Robin was holding, out of its sheath on his back. He had frowned and growled at that, but Lady Knight found it amusing that he was so aggressive over the littlest things, though she couldn't deny she was also like that at times. Actually, Lady Knight thought that Robin acted like this all the time, on a hunch she guessed.
"Having fun?" Lady Knight grunted as she stabbed a man in the stomach after kicking him in the stomach.
"Not really!" Robin responded before spinning and using the hilt of his katana to knock a man out, "It'd be better, if you stopped killing the imbiciles that could have information!"
"No these are hired guns. Given the right price, they won't ask any questions. They probably just know to protect that cargo ship and that's basically it" Lady Knight informed, this time killing a man by stabbing him in the head with Robin's katana.
"-Tt-Either way, killing them won't do any good." Robin retorted, and Lady Knight imagined he would have crossed his arms had they not been in the midst of battle.
"Besides the fact that now there's less scum on the earth, and I'm reducing over population?" Lady Knight muttered to herself, but had no doubt the partner of Batman would hear it.
"Just work." Apparently, Robin always had to have the last word. Nonetheless, Lady Knight kept doing what she was doing.
About a minute later, the last of the men had surrounded them, grinning like fools as they aimed their guns at the mercenary and the vigilante, as well as the crowbars that proved basically useless in the battle they were having.
Making eye contact, well, not exactly, given they were both wearing domino mask, they made up a way to both get themselves out of the situation alive, ignoring the fact they were likely to go back to fighting once the battle was over.
At the exact same moment, both the teenagers dropped to the concrete ground and rolled out of the circle of idiots, just as the gun fire began. The idiot men ended up shooting each other, which Robin seemed much too comfortable with those imbiciles killing each other to be the usual anti-killing vigilante Gotham seems to love.
The remaining men, those who didn't have a gun but instead a crow bar, were simultaneously taken out by simple means by both Robin and Lady Knight.
"Well I guess you aren't afraid of a few casualties." Lady Knight commented, and, in a friendly gesture (Even though he was probably going to still try and put her in Black Gate), handed him his own blood stained katana.
Robin grunted and crossed his arms, but did take the katana and wiped off the blood with a cloth he got from who knows where before putting the sword in its sheath.
"Okay, let's not fight each other...Until later." Lady Knight suggested putting her hand out for him to shake, "I want to find out why they needed hired guns for a simple drug shipment. It'd be easier to do that with you around, wouldn't it? And I would expect you weren't sent here because it was a usual drug bust, I've heard the Bats usually let Red Hood handle this kinda thing."
With a sigh, Robin hesitantly put his hand out, and shook hands with his new ally. In that wouldn't last a while, of course, but an ally for the time being. He only trusted her word though, because if she was who he thought he was, Lady Knight wouldn't back out of a deal.
"Let's go." Robin said stiffly, his slightly torn cape fluttering in the wind, before he jumped up to the platform that ultimately led to the cargo ship.
"I'm not getting paid enough for this..." Lady Knight mumbled, but followed suit.