Gotham

December 21st, 01:37 AM

"You sure you're ready for this?," Tigress asked, eying her friend with some concern.

She had not forgotten the pain that had been in Nightwing's eyes two days before. Nor had she forgotten that he had been shaking, unable to look any of them in the eye or speak to them. She would never be able to forget.

She also had not forgotten what Shikra had done, what some part of Nightwing was capable of doing. She almost wished she could hate him for it. But she knew in her own heart that she too had a darkness within, a monster inside which would never die. The desire for not just vengeance, but for the very act of violence itself was in her just as it was in Nightwing. Just as it was in all of them.

The only difference between her and Nightwing was that the cage for his beast had been ripped open and it had been set loose in the world. There had been nothing he could do to stop it. But now it was back in its cage, though Nightwing still clearly suffered for it, in more ways than one.

But in his eyes now there was no uncertainty, and the light of humor which was so much a part of him had returned to his eyes. Behind that were shadows of sorrow and pain, but that was normal for him. Nightwing, like all of them, had his own burdens, his own secrets, his own demons to fight and his own pain that he had to bear.

"That snake-lizard made a fool of us, and now it's just wrecking the city for the hell of it," Nightwing replied in answer to her question "don't you think it's time we finished what we started?,"

When Tigress still hesitated, Nightwing flashed her a confident smile, then threw himself headlong off the side of the building. Using a combination of grappler and agility, he swung and landed on the roof of the next building over. He looked back to see if Tigress was following. Shaking her head, she plunged after him.

It was clear that, whatever he felt, Nightwing did not want to talk about it. Very typical. And, frankly after everything that had happened in the last few days, Tigress was very much reassured by that. The more Nightwing acted like he usually did, the better she felt.

Nightwing slowed his pace, looking over the sides of the building as though checking his surroundings. But, in reality, he was allowing Tigress to catch up. Once she had, he resumed his headlong and fearless plunge through the dark. He not only knew every inch of the city's rooftops, he had every confidence that, should something be different from how he remembered, he had the ability to recover.

Tigress knew of no one else, even Robin, who could so boldly plunge from the tops of roofs, the grand top of the world that was Gotham, falling through the air in near darkness often unable to see where he would land until he was mere feet from it. The plain truth of it was that nobody was exactly like Nightwing and, if anyone were more confident than he was, it would have to be Batman. But Batman's caution tended to be greater than that of Nightwing. Nightwing was young and, for all his experience and intelligence, he was still more impetuous than any senior member of the League.

As they neared the location of the latest report of the Hydra, Nightwing slowed and became more cautious. Carefully, he circled the area, sharp eyes taking quick note of any and every sign that the Hydra had been there. He now knew with grim certainty that this creature had to die.

It was only half of a whole, the worst half, immune to the cure because of it and vicious beyond redemption because it had already destroyed its own better half. He had been undecided before, and his new found confidence didn't make him feel better. He knew it was his darker half that gave him his willingness to kill and his desire to leap into battle. It was because of Shikra that he now found himself ready, almost eager, to kill the Hydra.

There was another reason he wanted the Hydra gone. Though he knew it was irrational, his mind had tied the Hydra to Shikra, and he wanted more than anything to leave that experience far behind him. So long as the Hydra lived, so too, in a strange and completely insane way, did Shikra.

Nightwing knew it was nuts, that it was the sort of madness that could prove to be his own downfall, but he didn't really care. He was back to doing what he did best, and that was protecting his city and keeping his own demons at bay, making sure they never knew the freedom to wound the innocent or even turn his vigilante justice into a sick kind of revenge.

He knew it was a fine line he would be walking tonight. And maybe it was too soon. That dark part of himself was more alive than ever before, its call stronger than he'd ever known it to be. But, on the other hand, he could not permit the Hydra to roam free. It had moved on from destroying buildings and cars to attacking people, to killing them.

That was something he could not permit to continue. The Hydra was his failure, and his alone. He alone had allowed it to go free. And he would bring it down. Had he thought he could kill it by himself, he would not have asked Tigress to join him. Or maybe he would, knowing she would not forgive him for going on this particular venture alone. They had started this fight together and she no doubt wanted to be in on the end of it as much as he did.

Nightwing's almost quivering eagerness was not lost on Tigress, but it didn't bother her. She felt it too, felt it every time she was on the trail of a villain. She actually regarded Nightwing's new attitude with tremendous relief. It had been difficult working with him when he was so undecided. He hadn't been dependable in a fight. He was now, fully committed to the objective and mission.

It was Tigress who heard the distant roar of the beast they sought. She was not sure of what she'd heard, but waved Nightwing over, then stood stock-still, listening hard, barely daring to breathe. When the roar-hiss-snarl, a sound now familiar to both of them, came again, they reacted in perfect tandem with Nightwing taking the lead and Tigress following close behind.

It didn't take long to find the Hydra, parked in the middle of an intersection, flicking creeping late-night drivers into walls, hissing and snarling with its many heads. It had more than when they last met, and Nightwing wondered what had happened to cause the extra heads. It now possessed a total of five, each of which appeared to move independently.

He also wondered how and why the beast had been able to hide the past few days.

"This is ridiculous," Tigress commented as they both took a moment to absorb the scene "we catch criminals, we're not monster hunters,"

"Well tonight," Nightwing returned good naturedly "we're monster hunters,"

Without waiting for a response, he leaped in closer to the Hydra, flinging a handful of batarangs before him. One found its mark in the beast's hindquarter, but then it snapped the others to the side with a powerful sweep of its tail.

Tigress drew her sword and eased around to the opposite side of the intersection as the great behemoth turned its long body to face Nightwing, who stood waiting passively for it to do so. They had but one real hope against the creature, and that was to inflict lethal damage on something other than its head. Nightwing was not equipped for that.

He could wound the Hydra, but it seemed unlikely that anything in his arsenal would be able to deliver a killing blow. Perhaps, if this was their first encounter with the Hydra, Nightwing might have called for backup. But this was personal, both for him and for Tigress.

At the same moment, Nightwing and Tigress closed swiftly on the Hydra. Four of its five heads were swung to watch Nightwing, but the fifth recognized the danger to its back. Fortunately, though it had separate heads, the beast was still one creature.

It reared upright as Nightwing swept towards it, flipping over its back and lashing out with a pair of batarangs, one he threw, the other he used as a knife, sinking it deep into the creature's hide, then holding on. The thrown batarang dug into a muscle of the animal's right shoulder and it roared in pain. As it convulsed, Tigress swept in, sliding beneath its belly, sword upraised, slashing deep into its soft underside. As she cleared it below, Nightwing released his hold and leaped away.

As the Hydra roared and tried to sort out its own pain, they closed again, repeating the actions but in reverse. As Nightwing slid under the Hydra, he had time to pull out one of his stuck batarangs and retrieve one from the ground. Tigress pulled another from the creature's back and threw it to Nightwing as she completed he own attack.

These were moves they had practiced before, adjusted slightly from practice and tailored to their adversary, but all the hours of practice, the years of working together in the field, it made each movement fluid and natural, as each anticipated what the other would do.

They circled the creature, not daring to execute the same attack a third time, a bit frustrated that what they'd done so far seemed only to further anger the monster, doing little to bring it down. Switching to tactics of a more psychological nature, they darted in, making shallow wounds, dodging back before a clawed forefoot or snapping pair of jaws could get at them.

It was a method as old as nature itself, the same wolves used to bring down caribou, the same which could be seen in sharks when in a feeding frenzy. Moving in swiftly, doing as much damage as possible in the least amount of time. Get in, get out. Enough wounds would inevitably bring even the biggest of monsters to its knees.

There was danger in this attack. Because of its many heads, the Hydra could see them both coming at the same time. They had to be alert to block a counterstrike before even completing their attack. Any mistake on their part would end in death.

There was no question that this was the goal. This was the final fight, and even the Hydra knew it. There was no retreat from this, no regrouping. It ended here and now.

At last, panting, both Tigress and Nightwing backed off. The Hydra still stood, eying them with cold reptilian eyes. All creatures born of darkness as this one was were survivors. They had not expected it to be easy. But it was now looking to be impossible. The creature arched its necks, swiveling its heads this way and that, prepared for another onslaught.

Nightwing checked a bleeding cut on his arm. It wasn't bad, and he didn't even really recall getting it. He could see a similar cut on Tigress' forehead. The Hydra had taken the worst of the damage, but Nightwing and Tigress were only human. They could not hope to withstand the beating the Hydra had already taken.

Nightwing's mind was already looking for another solution, even as he began to circle the Hydra once more, again looking for an opening to strike. Tigress, on the opposite side, mirrored his movement, both eyes on the Hydra, who kept its body rigidly still even as its heads tracked both her and Nightwing. Both heroes gave the whiplash tail and clawed forelegs an extra wide berth.

It was Tigress who moved in first. From his angle, Nightwing saw the creature begin to shift towards her, and made a swift decision. Moving in faster, he kicked the animal right in the ribcage. It was a soft spot, but it also put him right in the middle of the creature's body. Its tail swept in from one direction, a pair of heads swung in from the other.

As Nightwing tried to get clear, the tail caught him, striking with a harsh snap. Nightwing hit the ground hard and it was all he could do to roll clear as the first head drove into the asphalt to crush him. The second followed, and there was no time to get clear.

Then the air was cut by the singing knife-blade note of a batarang. It sliced through the air and impaled the Hydra's neck. The diving head jerked back, stricken. The other spasmed in sympathy. Nightwing used the few second's of the creature's distraction not to escape, but to take full advantage of the opening he'd been given.

Pulling out the last of his batarangs, he dove in for the soft underbelly and drove the sharp object home between two of the creature's ribs. Even as he did, Tigress came from the other side, burying her own sword in the Hydra's chest. She pulled back then, realizing the animal was too busy writhing in pain to attack, she took another stab at it.

The Hydra reared, taking the sword with it. It teetered on awkward hindlegs, then rolled to the side with a groan, falling to the ground with a sickening crash, its impact powerful enough to crack the asphalt and send dust and debris flying everywhere.

Tigress shielded her eyes, and waited for the air to clear. The beast lay dead at her feet.

As she looked around, Tigress suddenly started to feel uneasy. Where was Nightwing?.

Then she let out a sigh of relief as she saw Nightwing disentangling himself from one of the Hydra's huge clawed forepaws. He shook himself like a wet dog, as if to be sure he was free of it. A bit bedraggled perhaps, but otherwise unharmed.

Nightwing looked around as though puzzled. Tigress wasn't sure what he was looking for, but before she could ask, Batgirl appeared out of the shadows, smiling cheerfully.

"You looked like you could use some help," She told Nightwing.

Tigress noticed that Batgirl maintained her distance from Nightwing, but that she was speaking to him at all was something of a surprise. It was evidently more of a shock to Nightwing who, for once, had nothing to say in response. He just stared at Batgirl, then at the Hydra, then nodded helplessly.

"So, anymore dragons to slay?," Batgirl asked "or can I quit for the night?. I don't know about you two, but I am starved,"

"That was... um... just the one," Nightwing tripped over the words, evidently still coming to terms with the fact that Batgirl was talking to him.

"I know a great all-night diner," Tigress changed the subject before Nightwing could further embarrass himself "what say the three of us head there for a victory dinner?,"

Nightwing shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsure of how Batgirl would feel about sitting at the same table with him. He needn't have worried.

"Sounds great," Batgirl smiled brightly "what do you think?,"

Forced into coming up with a response, Nightwing looked blank for a moment. Finally, he found his voice, and managed to prevent it from wavering.

"So long as nothing on the menu resembles bird seed," He replied quietly.

Batgirl, for some reason, found this immensely funny. Tigress had all but forgotten that Nightwing had not so long ago found himself held captive by a lunatic who believed him to be a bird. She laughed too, mostly because Batgirl's giggle was infectious rather than because what Nightwing said was funny.

"Come on," Tigress said, giving Nightwing's shoulder a shove "I promise there won't be any bird food in the diner,"


A/N on Reflection continued: I didn't strike on the answer to my problem until I was sifting through Reinvention for typos for the last time before posting. At the same time, I was putting the finishing touches on Resurrection before uploading it. I noted that I had not once, but twice, hinted at a much darker side of Nightwing than we've seen.

Sometimes you add something to a story to make it more compelling, without realizing that it will become the key to a future part of the story. I can't tell you the number of books I've read by a favorite author where the background character in one story is almost word for word the main character in another.

I now had two choices, both would be painfully obvious. One, Nightwing could just go darkside. Two, I could do the old sci-fi trick of splitting a personality in two. There's only one practical way to do that, which is into basically good and evil. It's not an especially good way to do it. I feel that you could be just as confident only being good as being evil. But it's a stronger story if you portray it that way, where evil winds up with all the strengths, minus morality.

So then all I needed was a name so the reader could tell one from the other (once you've got Nightwing fighting himself, that could become extremely confusing very quickly. "And then Nightwing punched Nightwing, but Nightwing ducked and then tripped Nightwing and then-" the author and reader's brain both explode. Yes, that's what comes next). The name Shikra was chosen because it was one of the more intimidating sounding birds of prey. Yes, Red Tailed Hawks are cool, but really, what kind of name is that?. You're just gonna get called Red. Or Hawk. Or RTH. And I'm pretty sure most of those are taken.

The idea of having Shikra's wounds transfer to Nightwing was mostly because I felt Robin needed something to actually trigger his attack, like a cold splash of water in the face. You know how sometimes you do something, then feel guilty about it afterword?. That's basically your evil part doing something, and then your good part dealing with the aftermath, right?. It made sense to me, so I ran with it, and didn't bother explaining it to anyone. Just because.

I had a pretty good thing going, though I still had a nagging doubt. Meekus should have been the end of the story, right?. Now how could I possibly end a story, which had clearly passed its ending and kept right on going?.