Issue #10

Triptych Perspective

Now, it was conceivable that B could have ducked. Maybe he could have pulled one of those weird Matrix moves where you bend over double and wave your hands around like an epileptic while somehow managing to not get hit by the hundreds of bullets that are flying at you.

Then again, I just can't picture Bruce in a black leather duster. Yeah, he wears a lot of black, both before and after Labor Day, but he just doesn't really have the right body frame for it. Maybe Lloyd had a point when he was talking about when he told me that Bruce should lose some of that muscle. Huh. I wonder if Lloyd has a duster?

Wait a minute. Where was I?

Ah, yes. Stopping that bullet.

I've used this ring for about five months now but my body still hasn't really adjusted to it yet. Kilowog once told me that the magic of the power ring can play tricks on your equilibrium, especially if you employed the more physical aspects of the ring's power, like he and I choose to do. I know it seems like I can be a pretty flamboyant person, but when it comes to fighting I like to keep things simple. I know that the ring is supposed to be this wonderful weapon that can produce 200-foot robots, gigantic laser cannons, and other phallic-shaped weaponry at a thought's notice, but I prefer a good left hook any day of the week. It just makes for a lot less hassle.

Forcefields are nice though. Like that shield I just threw up to shield Batman from the gun blast? Now that's what I call handy. How about the field I use to take Jason's gun away from him? Yeah, that's pretty sweet too.

Ah, here come the looks of surprise. Wow, Jason. You look like a shark when you gnash your teeth and get your eyes all wide like that. Not like one of those cool sharks on the nature specials though. More like one of those sharks in Finding Nemo that were trying to motivate themselves into being plant-eaters. Fish are friends, not food.

Yes, I realize I'm really getting off track here. Besides, it's time for the witty surprise entrance.

"Okay, J.T. If you're going to keep trying to use your toys to kill people, I'll just have to take them away!"

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to mess around in other people's affairs, Steffie?"

He's got that scowl. The Nightwing scowl. Not the cool Nightwing who called me sprout and told me embarrassing stories about Tim. He's got the Batman-wannabe Nightwing scowl. The one that was so busy anguishing over Barbara Gordon's latest brush-off or fuming over his inadequacy issues that he didn't have the time to be nice to other people. He'd scowl whenever he wanted you to leave him alone and didn't want to waste the time and oxygen he would need to express it directly. Like father, like son.

"Oh, but I think this is my affair, old bean." I stand up quickly and leap down off the edge of the rooftop. I used to hate the whole rooftop thing. I thought if God had wanted us to swing from rooftops, he would have given us bigger forearms. The ring just makes it a whole heaping bag of good fun though. I land with a flip and a flourish, all nice and thrilling. After all, when you're a "cape", you gotta play up the dramatics.

"Don't you know that you've gotta go through the plucky underling before you take on the leader? Where's your sense of propriety? Besides, if you're trying to be the new Batman the least you should do is to learn more about your Robin."

Cue Batman's warning/threat.

"Get out of here, Stephanie." Right on time.

"Go to hell, you interfering bitch."

As much as I'd like to take the advice (Bruce's, not Jason's), I'm not about to let these two kill each other. I'm not going to give Jason the opportunity to kill one of the few people in this world who has ever given a damn about me and I won't let Bruce do something that I know he'll never let down. I have the power to intervene in this situation, and I'm damn well gonna use it.

I show them that power on my right index finger. "This is a power ring, fresh from Oa. It can create anything within the holder's imagination, it can augment your strength and speed a thousand fold, and it bequeaths me with the ability to kick both your asses seven days a week and twice on Sunday."

"How lovably cocky," Jason drawls his words out. I ignore him because he's an asshole.

"So here's what I propose, Jason. One-on-one, you against me. No ring, no fancy tools, no batarangs, no bombs, no knives. Just fists and feet. If you win, you and Bruce can go back to killing each other. If I win, you cease your war against Bruce and we sit down and try to figure all this out."

The look in Bruce's eyes is a mix of anger and concern that very few people can really pull off. B can pull it off though, and it makes me want to hug him and run away from him at the same time.

Jason's loud laughter keeps me still. "What makes you think I should believe you, little lady?" His derogatory tone reminds me of Oracle. "I'll give you a better one. Why should you believe me?"

"Because I've only been in contact with you for a couple of minutes and I already know that you're a lot more like Bruce than you care to realize. I'm banking on the fact that the only way I could ever prove to Bruce that I deserved to be Robin was when I showed him that I could hold my own. Bruce may not be able to get through to you, but I'm thinking that maybe I can."

"Stephanie, this isn't necessary."

"No, Bruce. It's very necessary. This isn't Joker or Two-Face or some random thug. This is your former partner! This is a guy whose goofy-ass short shorts are locked up in a glass case in the Batcave because you think that your failure to save him was your greatest mistake. Now it's high time that we sat down and talked about all this."

"This isn't your fight, Robin." I can feel that Batman doesn't want me to get hurt, that he values my safety. I let that assurance bolster me but I don't allow it to persuade me to stand down.

"SHE IS NOT ROBIN! She's nothing but a replacement!"

"Then prove it, J.T." Okay, that's not the wittiest retort I've ever come up with but come on, I'm working in uncharted waters here! Still, the look on Jason's face convinces me that I've persuaded half of my intended audience.

I turn back to Batman. "I can do this, Bruce. You've trusted me this much."

Right then it just hits me that Bruce Wayne, Batman, isn't sure about what he should do. Now that's scary no matter how you really look at it. He looks from me to Jason to me and then back to Jason again.

"How cute. You've made him emotional and indecisive."

Shut up, Jason.

"Be careful, Stephanie."

It takes a while for that statement to really sink in. Let me tell you, it's an odd feeling for somebody like me to have somebody who actually believes in them.

I think Tim loved me, at least a little bit, but I couldn't help but notice when we worked together that I was more of a pleasant distraction than a true partner. Oracle was nice enough to hate me outright, but Helena and Miss Lance tolerated me by lobbing funny jokes about my incompetence back and forth to one another. And believe me, no matter how many times Cass said that those nerve pinches didn't hurt, they would.

They really would.

Ah, the hell with all of them. Bruce is stepping aside and Jason is putting himself in a fighting stance. It looks like Wing Chun but it's hard to tell. The old me, the girl who was still happy being Spoiler, always thought that there were too many damn stances and forms and hand movements to really keep track of. It's difficult for me, but I'll manage.

Batman believes that I can win. He believes that I'm worth a damn.

Jason Todd, you do not stand a chance.

Ollie activated the time delay on an explosive arrow and set it to the string. "Well, Pretty Bird. I'm not sure if this Lloyd guy is a good guy but I'm pretty damn sure those are bad guys."

"Stop."

Ollie turned his attention towards Dinah, thinking that she had given him the order. However, she hadn't said a word or moved a muscle. "What the hell?" he muttered.

"Shut up!"

"Ah, damn. I'm not hearing voices in my head again, am I?" Ollie said loudly as Dinah rushed to mute her ex-boyfriend. "I haven't even had any Nyquil this time!"

"Bloody hell! Shut the hole in your face before I do it for you!"

"Ollie, please be quiet!" Ollie distinctly heard Dinah's voice in his head that time. "Um. . . this is a three-way mind link, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lloyd thought back as he blocked another blast fired by one of the constructs. Stephanie was right on the money when she said these things could pack a punch. Of course, it didn't help the Black Dog that he had been corralled into a highly enclosed sewer passage and he was trying to keep Black Canary and Green Arrow away from detection and he was keeping up a mind link so they would know what he was doing. Still, as he told Bruce before, you couldn't make the job too easy on yourself.

There was a definite bright side to the current state of affairs. The constructs didn't appear to have a great deal to offer in terms of fighting ability. Apparently whoever developed them thought that the constructs' strength, speed, and durability were more than enough to allow these machinations to do what they needed to do. Also, Lloyd still had his blade, which appeared to be able to penetrate the external coating of the OMAC as simply as it would slice a piece of bread.

Of course, when you're fighting opponents that you only wish to incapacitate, a sword is probably not the most logical choice of weapon. That matter aside, Lloyd was managing to hold more than his own despite the many distractions.

"Just who said you could go and muck about in my noggin like this?" Ollie asked belligerently. As Lloyd sliced into one of the constructs' forearms with his blade, he began to understand why Batman didn't think very highly of Star City's resident archer.

"Well, me conscience was tellin' me twas either that or let you two get sliced into superhero cold cuts."

"Lloyd, it's not like we're going to let you do this alone!"

Lloyd was quite relieved when Dinah took it upon herself to speak up before Green Arrow could do so. "'M not askin' ya to, Miss Lance." Lloyd grabbed an OMAC by its thick, right forearm and swung him in a circle, using his newfound weapon to knock the other constructs away from him. With the other four constructs momentarily off their feet, Lloyd slowed his spinning and used his telekinesis to keep the other construct in a state of levitation several feet in the air. He leapt to meet it, striking with a spinning kick that sent it hurtling into two of the downed constructs. "Y'know what these things are?"

"Yeah, they're called OMACs. They've been all over Metropolis." Ollie replied.

"Then you know that they're specifically programmed to hunt down meta-humans. According to Batman, they download collected data from Brother Eye upon making contact with a meta-human and adjust their defenses to their target's capabilities."

"Nice to know Batman's little play toy is being used well." Ollie added brusquely.

"That's enough, Ollie!" Dinah shouted. "What are you trying to say, Mr. Thomas?"

"'S Lloyd, luv. Right now, they're all programmed to take me on. Now, I'm capable of doing a lot of things to put these things down. Like this!" Lloyd fired a blast of plasma energy to knock down three of the constructs as the other two charged at him. "But there's one form of energy that isn't in my repertoire."

Dinah was clever enough to get the picture. "Just tell me when."

Lloyd momentarily avoided the combined assault of the constructs before teleporting behind them.

The trap had been laid.

"NOW!"

"KREEEEEEEEEE!"

Completely unprepared for Dinah's Canary Cry, the constructs struggled to maintain their equilibrium, their technoorganic coating warping like rubber bands over an open flame. Ollie quickly added to the chaos with a sonic arrow that clearly put the constructs into a more exaggerated state of agony.

Amidst the bedlam, Lloyd used his magic to fashion a force shield around his two compatriots before beginning to channel the mysterious energy stored within his body. He felt the energy rising from the tips of his toes and coursing into his fingertips. He adjusted and controlled the burgeoning power, instinctively calculating and controlling his anticipated output to an almost infinitesimal degree before finally releasing it.

Safely shielded within their energy shell, Dinah and Ollie watched as the constructs seem to wither from the intensity of the concentrated blast of energy until the luminosity of the flare threatened to blind them. Though their struggle was unseen, the constructs continued to writhe and thrash about from the force of a creation far more dangerous and sinister than themselves. When Lloyd had cut the power to the flare only five seconds after he had released it, the former sky-blue husks of the constructs had dissipated. Only their human hosts appeared to remain, each of them clearly unconscious but seemingly none the worst for wear.

Lloyd, on the other hand, had certainly seen better days. Blood seemed to be gushing from his nose and small dribbles were leaking out of his mouth. His normally thin frame now seemed to be more skeletal in nature. Worried that he might keel over and take a header into the sewage below, Dinah rushed over to the boy's right side and slid under his shoulder to support him. Ollie was soon to follow on his left.

"Holy Hannah, kid!" Oliver exclaimed. "What did you do?"

Lloyd took several breathes before replying. "Would have been easier if I just blew up the town," he said with a mirthless grin. Not really up to directly answering the archer's question, he turned to Dinah. "Thought you didn't want me hands on you?"

Dinah gave the young man a smile that threatened to stop his heart. "After all that, just keep your hands away from anything suspicious and we're good."

"Look at this, Pretty Bird. These OMAC things are human!"

"Not quite," Lloyd croaked. "There's a heartbeat, but no sign of brainwave activity. Looks like Bats was right about the techno-organic virus bit."

"A virus? So what did your blast do? Did it just eliminate the virus?" asked Dinah.

"Don't really know," Lloyd replied. "All I was tryin' to do was to overload the virus while trying not to hurt the people. 'M not really sure if something like that can be killed."

"I've got a better question. How the hell did they not see that we were here?" Ollie added.

"When I couldn't sense any brainwave activity, I went with the idea that the constructs are essentially robotic in nature. Now, robots can be built for stuff like physical shielding and energy absorption, but robots and magic don't quite mix right. Stuff like telepathy and, in this case, an invisibility spell, is something they just can't figure out."

"Makes sense," Ollie said. "A computer can see or hear something, but they can't feel it."

Satisfied with his own explanations, Lloyd started to wriggle himself free from Dinah's hold on him. Both Dinah and Ollie instinctively moved to support him but Lloyd held up a hand. "'S alright, mates. I heal quick. We got any idea where to find this Key fellow?"

"We've been following one of Raven's astral projections since Metropolis," Dinah replied.

That clearly surprised Lloyd. "Astral projection? That's odd. Figured I'd see somethin' like that."

"Apparently Raven's made it so that only Ollie can see it."

"See, Pretty Bird? I told you I'm good for somethin'."

"Yes, and once I figure out what that is I'll be happy to let you know."

Dinah's reply sounded downright caustic, but it only caused Ollie to smile with the roguish charm of a swashbuckler. "All right then. . . Lloyd was it? Well, you're not too bad for one of Batman's Hitler Youth. Follow me."

As Ollie walked off, Lloyd turned back to Dinah.

"Hitler Youth?"

"Don't ask me."

This little bitch is just in my way. That's all this is. One more obstacle, one more hurdle to leap, one final distraction that I have to endure before I claim my prize.

Yeah, maybe I had to ditch some of the brass rings. I don't have the manpower to take over Gotham City and it's too risky to break into Arkham just to get back at Laughing Boy, but damn it I'm gonna get the gold. And don't think I won't, old man. Just stand there with your insufferable little air of brooding and consternation, acting like you actually give a flying crap about this girl. You should be worried, because I'm gonna break this little bird's neck right in front of your soulless eyes.

Damn it, she even fights like an impediment. Always blocking, always dodging, always yapping, never attacking outright, countering only when there was a significant opening. She knows how to fight defensively; I'll give her that.

It won't be good enough though. I'm the original. She's the pretender. She thinks she's Robin but the real Robin is dead.

And soon this fake one will join him, forming an amalgam of a repulsive symbol specifically designed to shine a light on a man who didn't deserve it.

I know why she talks and I know why she continuously spouts all this pop culture drivel. It's the same reason why I used to do it when I was in her shoes. It's so you could stomach the bottomless and unlikely cocktail of confidence and fear. Fear that this will be somebody's lucky night and you won't make it back home. Confidence that Batman would make sure that wouldn't happen, that he's trained you so well, prepared you so diligently, that you could get out of whatever was thrown at you.

But he won't get you out of it, little bird. He won't even care when somebody clips your wings or avenge the wrongs that will be done to you. I know it's a hard lesson to learn, Steffie, but who better to learn it from than somebody who experienced it first-hand?

I finally land my first good shot when she blocks a right hook and tries to counter with a left high kick. I grab her by the lower thigh and pivot so my back is facing her belly as I belt her across the face with my elbow. I hear her grunt in pain but to my surprise, she manages to squirm away before I can do any more damage. She's back on her feet in no time placing herself in a proper defensive stance. Smart girl.

Or maybe not so much. This kid has the moves, but she doesn't have the skill to use them all properly. She hasn't yet been able to mesh and mold them in order to create a style of fighting that is solely her own. At best, she's had maybe a couple years of training under her belt. I've spent five years learning from the people who taught your boss, young lady. I could've ended this fight in any number of ways. Do you even realize that or are you that green?

"Now really. Is that the best you've got?" Typical tough little girl talk. Doesn't faze me a bit. "I've seen Nightwing crap better moves than that."

Still doesn't faze me. Maybe my moves become a bit quicker, my strikes angrier, but it doesn't faze me. Even if she did, it doesn't matter. If I can go toe-to-toe with Bruce Wayne, there isn't any way this little suburbia castaway is going to do me in. She may be faster than I am, but I'm quick enough and strong enough to more than make up the difference.

She doesn't stand a chance.

I have to wonder where exactly she learned Hapkido.

It's an interesting choice, that's for certain. During her first tenure as Robin, Stephanie had the tendency to rush into situations, opting to put as much force as possible into her attacks and focusing her energy into attacking her opponent before they could. Now she was patient, waiting for her opponent to make a mistake and employing her opponent's momentum against them. It was the behavior of a disciplined fighter.

However, despite her new choice in tactics, she remains loud and abrasive. Her talking has taken on another purpose besides abating her own nervousness. She's employing her intimidation and taunting to goad her quarry into making mistakes.

I like to think that I played a part in this improvement.

If people could see what I was thinking, I imagine that most of them would wonder how I would allow myself to work under these lines of thinking. While two of my former students, my "black sheeps," beat the hell out of each other I am constructing new training exercises and augmenting patrol patterns. You are free to ask me why I would choose to think like this, but I can't guarantee a precise answer. Maybe there's a dark part of me that wants to see how far these two children have come. Maybe it's because I'm so damn tired of fighting the same fights with Jason time and time again that I'm willing to employ such a drastic means to understand what is going on in the mind of this angry, young man with the red domino mask.

Maybe I'm just trying to avoid the fact that Stephanie can't win this fight.

There's no doubt that Stephanie has improved by leaps and bounds, but Jason is nothing but brutal efficiency. Stephanie is resourceful, amazingly stubborn, and undeniably spirited, but she simply doesn't have the experience to counter Jason's many tricks and techniques.

I can almost feel the sting as Stephanie reels from the impact of a picture-perfect spinning backhand. I watch these two little children who came to me with broken wings and dreams of making something of themselves. They both wanted to show this bleak, chaotic world that they belonged. I thought I had lost the both of them; one to my greatest enemy and one to a person I considered to be one of my oldest friends, but now they both have returned from the grave. Both of them had come to me to show me that they could fly. One had come to stand beside me once again while the other had come to take my place.

Is this pain I feel: this agony of being unable to save Jason from what he's become, the anguish of seeing Stephanie in pain, the pain of a father? I'm supposed to be the world's greatest detective but I still can't quite figure this out.

One of Stephanie's flurries hit their mark. She dodges a right hook and follows up with two quick body blows and a palm strike that lands somewhere between Jason's windpipe and his heart. Jason stumbles backwards and I can't help but notice that a small part of me wants to cheer as Stephanie moves on the offensive.

No, this isn't quite like the pain of a father. Paternal instincts are rooted within it, let there be no question about that, but something else is going on here.

Over the past seven months, I have watched my friends and family walk out of my life citing one explanation or the other. When it all started to happen, I almost welcomed it. Perhaps that desire was rooted by some subconscious desire to return to my early days under the cape and cowl, a time when I still held the dewy patina of a man who believed he could change the world by flying around at night in a costume and righting wrongs. I thought that was a better time, but that thought only rang true because I had tricked myself into believing it to be true.

The fact of the matter was that I don't want to be alone. As much as I abhor Lloyd and Stephanie's ridiculous daily arguments over the breakfast table and how they meticulously criticize battle plans that I've worked on for days, I can't deny that I'm a great deal happier with all that chaos than without it. It's uncomfortable, unpredictable, and sometimes intolerable, but it's solely mine and nothing can take it away from me unless I allow it.

So as Jason regains the advantage, as he slowly whittles down Stephanie's defenses, I understand the source of this pain.

Punch. Block. Counter-punch. Block.

Stephanie's going to lose.

Kick. Duck. Counter-punch. Sway.

Jason may very well hurt her horribly.

WHAP!

And I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop myself from ripping Jason apart if he does so.

"This place is nothing but a reeking hellhole! A symbol of the waste of the haves and the degradation of the havenots! Let me tell you that if you want those right-wing corporate fascist fat cats up in Washington to see the price of good living? Well, how about draggin' 'em down to Gotham City where every ass-hole and parasite is welcome!"

"Really now, Ollie. You can't judge a town solely by its sewer."

Ollie would surely have had a snippy comeback for his former lover if he wasn't preoccupied with chasing down Manitou Raven's astral projection. Choosing to let Dinah's comment go unzinged, he continued to lead the way through the musty passageways with Dinah and Lloyd close behind.

Dinah turned to face Lloyd. The confrontation with the courteous killer robot and the constructs had left her feeling unusually chatty. Besides, it was either talking or continuing to acknowledge the fact that she would have to burn all the clothing she was wearing once she got home. "So you're working with Bruce now?"

"Goin' on a bout a month now, yeah." Lloyd replied, matching Dinah step for step.

"Shouldn't you be wearing a mask then? I thought that was sort of the dark-vigilante prerequisite."

Lloyd looked as if the mere thought of a mask was physically repugnant. "Sod that. 'M not famous, got no family, and I hate havin' shit round me eyes."

Dinah could understand that. "Oh, yeah. That's why I stopped wearing a mask. It's bad enough having to deal with all of this." She grabbed a lock of her dyed blonde hair.

"Can we table the discussion on proper superhero grooming until another time?" Ollie asked grouchily.

Dinah and Lloyd ignored him. After all, they had both taken guff from Batman about talking too much and that didn't stop either of them from saying what they felt like. Green Arrow would have had better luck muting an earthquake.

"Bear in mind that this is coming from the man who has sported the same goatee for the last ten years," Dinah quipped.

"Too right," Lloyd added with a smirk. "An' speaking of masks, who is supposed to be fooled by that little bandage around your eyes. Blind people?"

"All right, all right! Enough!" Ollie skidded to a stop; both because the pursuit had taken a different turn and the fact that he wanted to nip this conversation in the bud. "The raven just flew above ground. Raven and the Key must be up there. I'll go up first."

Ollie quickly made his way to a nearby steel ladder topped by a manhole cover. With a brief grunt of exertion, Ollie used his free hand to shove the steel plate aside and make his way to the surface.

Lloyd turned back to Dinah. "Sorry if this seems like a silly question, but just who is this Raven chit? How's she know Bruce?"

"Her real name is Manitou Dawn," Dinah replied. "She's only recently adopted her late husband's title. They both had a small stint with the Justice League about a year ago," Dinah replied as she and Lloyd both made their way to the ladder. "There had been some business about an Apache cult and some Atlantean ruins and apparently all the members of the Justice League died and then came back from the dead."

"Sounds complicated," Lloyd replied as Dinah put her left foot on the ladder.

"Yet another reason why I'd rather just stay in Gotham."

Lloyd, in a manner befitting of a good gentleman who did not want to be accused of staring at a very dangerous woman's backside, began climbing first. "An' why is Ollie so hung up about all this?"

Dinah sighed as she started climbing the ladder as well. "Ollie and Dawn's husband, the original Manitou Raven, were working on the same team. Apparently Dawn and Ollie had a bit of an extramarital tryst and the both of them are pretty wrought out because of it."

Now at the manhole cover, Lloyd turned around. "Sorry, luv."

Dinah blew a stray hair out of her eyes. "Don't worry about it. Nothing I'm not used to anymore."

Deciding to leave it at that, Lloyd joined Ollie on the surface.

The moment he emerged, Lloyd felt that something was wrong. He would have normally chalked it up to the fatigue from the fight with the constructs, but a niggling sensation told him that something else was awry. Now so close to the source, he could feel the telepathic interference given of by the Key and it only seemed to magnify the Black Dog's sense of unease. So, there were a number of reasons why Lloyd's senses had been dulled, if only for the briefest instant.

But that instant is often all that's needed.

"Green Arrow, GET DOWN!"

Lloyd saw the bullet coming, pinpointing the muted register of the gun and using his eyes to work his way from there. Perhaps he could have destroyed the shot before it reached its mark had he been at his full capacity, perhaps not. Instead, as he stepped into the path of the shot, all Lloyd could do was hope that he could minimize the casualties.

The explosive round detonated within the forcefield Lloyd had constructed around himself to protect Dinah and Ollie from the blast. His efforts to protect others, however, had left him to take the full brunt of the blast. The charge of a Thangaarian sniper rifle could atomize a normal man at such a range. Thankfully for him, Lloyd was quite a ways away from a normal man. Despite his hardy constitution, he could only dimly hear Dinah's scream and Ollie's shouting as he sailed through the air, completely unable to control his own trajectory as his limp frame was thrown from the blast. Lloyd didn't know whether it was brick, glass, or some other substance that he crashed through as he faded from consciousness, but it was safe to presume that it really didn't matter.

Dinah and Ollie looked up to see Slade Wilson standing on a rooftop, the still-smoking rifle in his hand. The battered, but still battle-ready members of the Fearsome Five stood with him.

"See, children," Slade said, not even bothering to hide his depreciatory timbre. "You have to have the right tool for the right job." Deathstroke gently placed the rifle down on the rooftop before pulling his blade out from the scabbard on his back. "Now, let's slice these other two to ribbons."

As the five Society members leapt off the rooftop to do battle, both Dinah and Ollie were quite aware that they were in trouble.

"I have to give you a bit of credit, little birdie," Jason said as he leapt over Stephanie's sweeping kick. "You're a lot tougher than I figured."

"Well, I keep telling you people not to underestimate me," Stephanie countered. Jason rushed at her once again, this time with a leaping kick that the younger Robin was able to roll away from with ease. She tried to counter the missed strike with a strike from her left hand aimed at Jason's neck. The Red Hood caught her arm in mid-swing, turning his block and spinning it into an armbar with astonishing speed.

"Don't worry," he said menacingly. "I won't anymore."

Stephanie growled like a rabid dog as Jason broke her left arm, the revolting snap of bone briefly echoing through the narrow confines of Crime Alley. Gritting her teeth and holding in a cry of agony, she used her free arm to elbow Jason once, twice, three times in the head before he finally let go of her. Though the headshots had clearly hurt him, it was clear that Jason had gotten the better of the exchange. Out of the corner of her eye, Stephanie could see Bruce rushing towards them, a batarang at the ready.

"NO!"

Stephanie reactivated her ring in a flash, placing Batman within a force bubble. Surprised by this turn of events for the briefest moment, Batman gave her a look that frightened her far more than Jason ever could. However, she still held her ground. "I've got this!"

The momentary distraction gave Jason more than enough time to clear the cobwebs and attempt to capitalize on his advantage. As Stephanie once again reverted to her all-too-vulnerable non-powered state, Batman watched the battle intensely. Stephanie saw that her plan was crumbling down around her and that she only had a scant amount of time to fix things.

Jason unleashed a torrential assault on the wounded young woman. Though Stephanie had managed to dodge more than her fair share of blows, quite a few of them also found their mark. Robin had somehow managed to turn Jason away with a kick to the gut, but she had been left with a severely busted lip and a left eye that was beginning to close up.

Jason knew he was winning and was more than willing to point that out. "Oh, no. I've broken my new toy."

Stephanie refused to give the former Robin an inch. "I'm still standing. Come and get me."

Jason shook his head in exasperation. "Jesus, you're just like me back at that age. Young, brash, and too stupid to know when you're beat."

Stephanie acknowledged the tendency that the two of them appeared to share. "True, true. Want to know a difference between us though?"

Jason didn't give Stephanie the time to answer her own question, rushing at Stephanie with a growl of anticipation.

As she raised her crumbling defenses once again, she decided to answer it anyway. "I may just be a little birdie." As she ducked under a spinning kick, Stephanie hastily snaked her right arm underneath her Kevlar vest. Pulling out a small, cylindrical object, she tackled Jason to the ground, placed the object at Jason's exposed neck, and pressed the button.

Jason screamed as his body was hit by 2,000 volts of electricity. Stephanie had been wise to place the taser on the man's neck, seeing as it was one of the few places on the Red Hood's body that wasn't protected by insulated Kevlar. The vigilante's roar was first a roar of surprise, then it was of pain, but then it went silent altogether.

Stephanie lay on top of Jason, panting with exhaustion while the shooting pains in her left arm seemed to grow in intensity. Despite the agony, however, she made an effort to look Jason directly into his glazed eyes.

"As I was saying. I may just be a little birdie, but you've got to admit I'm pretty damn clever."

The victorious Stephanie Brown achingly made her way back up to her own two feet under her own power. Cradling her left arm, she turned towards Batman, who was unsuccessfully trying not to look surprised at this turn of events, and flashed him her brightest smile."

"Well, how about that! I won."

Then she collapsed as well.