Nightwing; A Series of Doubts – Give and Take – rwe09 r4
0-o w3r4 ip9
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Chapter 15: I'm the Boss, So Step Aside and Let Me Work My Magic
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Dick's new boots tapped the floor, his new armored gloves were as nice as Red's. Had to be foul money, but who was he fighting? Dick scanned the space of the unit Slade had him come to. The man said he'd be there, but his face would be for everyone to remember.
As purely nutso as it sounded to hear this "Slade" talk like a real psycho from Arkham (So, there is a bit of a twist coming, stay alert for it!) still, Dick wasn't all for the motorcycle he'd driven to get here. Yet again, another piece of his soul stacked away like dollar bills into his ne "mentor's" greedy hands.
Black, sleek with a dark blue stripe and curving in, the strange color scheme had him pause as stony steps shook the lot. Fists put up; his Robin instincts still had him stepping from a crashing door as it flew to the side.
Completely busted off the door hinges.
"Finally, gonna get to meet the mini hero who saved our wonderful city's mayor…" The goliath grinned. Twice as big as the Hive's heaviest hitter, and even Cy or Slade's height, he wasn't human. His eyes were wild, and his cranium was wider than average and enlarged. Not a genetic defect, but an alteration in the name of super science.
Getting pumped, Dick knew that face not at all – nor that he'd know it and its next in line as Desmond stomped forth with a rather cheeky disposition, mocking the little pest in his way.
He could break his bones. He could put the kid in his place with ease.
"Are we gonna do this?" The bruiser made sure to crack his own neck, pure veins of even Bane's quality turning Dick back from…
No. He wanted this, that man being his way into becoming Blud's hero.
"What should I call you?" Dick pushed past the gut feeling that he'd be crawling to the car in a few short hours. Pulling out his new Escrima sticks, the tips lit up with sparks.
Not even the fourth of July yet.
"My guys call me. Blockbuster. Bit of a movie lover. Mostly car chase scenes and dramas from the good ole' days. I'm the one who runs this city fulla' street rats an' vagrants. Any more questions, prick?"
"Did you ever stop to think about all of those people you've hurt?" Dick growled back, as upset at Blockbuster's comment. "These good people are being kept quiet by creeps like you, and I promised to be a voice FOR Blud. So that they don't have to feel powerless." Dick twirled his sticks and did a pose so powerful, grin so dashing, that Slade who was watching, had to bite at his knuckles not to fall into old habits.
~ Nearly perfect, he's perfect…~
"Those toys look pretty snazzy. What should I call you, kid? Amazo – kid, or not? I gotta know what I'm up against when I smack your toys with you down into the dirt. " The menace looked like a sumo by how he pounded the floor. Kicking the dirt as this "toro" meant to kill on instant.
Dick would have to resort to a few shocks, test out the bulky beast in front of him – not kill. Blud wasn't used to a squeaky-clean prince trotting around spouting so much hope as flyers on an elected official.
"The one who's here to stop any criminals…" Dick gritted his teeth answering, and snarling low while readying to fly, just as the bruiser had a fist coming round once he did.
"That GET IN MY WAY!!" (Haunted 2003 line, so Dick is now in heavy hitter mode.)
/
Bruce slammed an explosive to the door of the factory, finding it emptied out, and getting a Déjà vu feeling as a crackle over his comm device by his ear sounded loudly.
~ Trap!! Get-...zzzzp….out….zzzp! ~
Lights flew on as robots littered the place. Batman realized it all too late as he and Selina stayed back-to-back.
"We've been ticked off, rodent…now what?"
"We fight; find the real man in the shadows." Batman told her as Ivy de sure to duck and dodge. "Did I come here for an early execution Bat – fucker?" She groaned and sent a bit of pollen to clean up these bots' circuitry.
To her shock, it was useless to try again twice.
"How developed are these robots?"
"The same as the one that destroyed itself…" Bruce's jaw clenched as Selina wondered how far this would extend.
"I don't think they'd rather fight off anyone else, Dark Knight."
The hero looked to the catwalk and saw a tall, armored monster from the JLA's older files.
"Who…Is that him?" Selina blinked up owlishly at her ex-lover.
"We are so fucked !" Ivy moaned and threw back her head in distress.
" Deathstroke." Batman stayed his ground as the robots were –
IT made –
He stopped.
"You think you know the whole story, but don't try to read up until the very last page, Batman. This base is one of many." The Slade dopple had no flaws. Unlike the Robin look alike, it could strike Batman with a flick of two fingers. Hands behind its back, it had the power to command armies, yet the real Slade was not far. He could destroy it and this whole factory, if it tried to kiss up to the director.
"You had these crazy contraptions built; but they aren't from our universe. How did you accomplish this task? You have been out won by me before in my own city before." Batman reminded the brute in Black and orange. Ivy knew; she and Selina stayed far back and watched if the bots would strike.
Death here, would give you an instant trip to the ER. He was not to be tempted and Bats…. was too stubborn to pull far back and run.
"With the ability to go as far forwards as to when, or when my real enemy will emerge…I can tell you…he'll be nothing like dear old DADDY."
"You!" Selina gasped. "Where is the missing kid, DS?" We don't have all day to groom our own whiskers while you purr on about your failures."
"I'm getting to that, my dear." The cat hissed as the fake ignored. "The factory is not for the bots to be built and decimated in an hour, there are other tools I can use…. but you'll never find them." He smirked. "Try as you might, this city needed a new protector, and I have given them something much…"
Bruce got out his rangs, Ivy's eyes lit up and Selina waited to have her whip put to good use.
"Much, more…than they had wanted to begin with. Think of it as a campaign where I manage a new breed of vigilante, and your boy? He's been so willing to –
"This ends, now …Deathstroke!!"
Bruce let his rang sing out, hitting metal as it broke the silence and a blast from it had the Slade robot with his face landing as the original might.
"HE'S not coming back with you…he stays here, with me !!" Slade threw his smoke pellets and the room of auto piloted robots, swarmed.
/
Todd had other plans, one being he knew criminals and all of their little red herrings. He knew how this one had to be playing games as he came upon a sight.
A reinforced warehouse by the docks in south Bludhaven.
He saw the locks, the infrared from his helmet's tech.
"He's in there." The heartbeat was fiery. He had to be as Jay slunk off to join his older bro in close combat with a mountain giant.
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Dick saw the concreate forcefully crack apart as Blockbuster just missed his high flying target. Dick panted; seeing the damage, seeing S –
Where did he –
"Eyes up here, kiddo!!"
/
Slade had reason to think that his perfect plan had one tiny hole made mainly by…
He got out his swords from his back and unsheathed both, as a thief from old times fell through the ceiling.
"No doorway. Guessed you liked to dig tunnels, fat cat – or should I say? Merc from another mother?" Todd pulled his gun out as Slade grunted. "You should have stayed with Daddy bats, but do tell; how did you know to come here, Hood?"
"Easy." The cocky Outlaw smirked and raised his arm a bit, then lowered it.
"I knew, because who else is madly that twisted when it comes to bringing kids under his wing an' making um fight?" With an unpredicted shot to the rails, both fell off the catwalk and to a heap of box crates. Dick was further away; the rumbling Blockbuster was keeping him blind and in focus on a new bad guy.
"You'll have to do better than that… Reject !!"
Slade yelled and his swords came down onto the crate. Splintering it into divided sections as Todd rolled away and shot another bullet – only that shot bounced and to his primal fears…
It hit Blockbuster in the side of his shoulder, just as Dick landed what looked to be the finishing blow.
Sparks flew from those polymer rods; his toed boots didn't hit thrice but multiple times as Slade's eye widened while he scratched up Todd's armor. Not stopping, just beating him as Robin did the same.
Hitting.
Tearing.
Slicing.
Pulverizing.
Defeated…. lay both as the two stood over their supposed knock - outs.
Their victims.
Time stopped, as the dust clouds had cleared to reveal those two; that very twist the team had waited to negate on their mission.
Failed, by how it had turned out…
Both nearly mirror images of such fury, as Tim and Babs made it…to find Dick drenched in someone else's blood.
A spitting image of a future fugitive, as neither looked away very long.
A nose smashed in, a shoulder with a bullet wound.
This goliath was a wreck and she KNEW the person responsible.
Babs couldn't look away.
Tim didn't know if he should, they were both criminals involved in a city wide con...
He bit his lip and seethed.
"You shouldn't have shown up." Dick eyed his family members, coldly.
"Why did…." Tim looked at the man, his eyes on what was supposed to be a fake.
But Slade didn't need to get Blockbuster out yet, as he smiled and held Red's gun up to the young outlaw's throat as he dragged the bleeding boy's body forth.
"They've come for you, Robin." Slade announced as the two bat clan children jumped at the man's presence.
"Are you going to go with your family? Or will you stay and help clean up this mess you've made... Hero."
/
It was ticking seconds, gritted and clenched knuckles and the sound of squeaking Kevlar gauntlets, before someone broke this moment of silence in the room.
"He's not dead." Slade spoke up "I have already reached and called the authorities; they'll be on their way…" Slade told the group and his boy. "You should leave to wash your suit down." Dick's shoulders tensed as Tim recognized why Bruce was so afraid.
"I'll leave your sad outlaw to the bat to patch up." Slade released Red Hood as his body swayed to be caught by Tim and Babs' open arms. Coughing, Jay's eyes were too puffy to see right. Deathstroke had bludgeoned the anti-hero in minutes alone, while Dick mimicked some of that finesse to be the deadliest they'd ever seen him.
"Dick…heroes don't do things like this…" Barbara's voice shook, paralyzed that Deathstroke…had been on Robin's ear this whole time.
The one who'd given him his name as a hero of Blud….It was so unfair!
"Why are you trusting him??" She cried out, hugging her other ally as Dick was unable to reciprocate the same pity towards his brother and ex-girlfriend. Starfire was tainted because of that jerk anyway. Babs was too weak. She could have gotten killed and he wouldn't have been able to save her then…
"He trusted me; unlike Batman, unlike any of you could have." The red breasted traitor spat. "You thought I needed to stay in line to survive, but Blud isn't just any city." Clutching his escrima, Richard shook the blood off while Tim cringed. Slade just watched with his large hands planted behind his back. *
"It's MY city." Dick let spit fly as he said it, bellowed it to any who would finally listen. "I'm here become an officer of the law and one day I'll stop this same criminal and his band of low lives from ever keeping the people of Blud from speaking their peace. By, having a Haven to go back to. And I can't do that if I act like "Robin; the apologetic idiot who always gets beat up and killed a thousand times by any well-known killers IN Blud."
"You already WERE!" Tim shouted. "By…. Deathstroke! Everything points to a Stockholm case, and we want to help –
"I don't…NEED you to "help" me, anymore!" Dick snarled and raised his hand to say it. To scream it as f he had to. "I didn't need some two-bit partnership where Babs is the one who can put me away for going a little over the line to save even MORE lives!" He shot at the teens. "Deathstroke is teaching me to survive. To become a stronger force against these monsters of this city that all want me dead, and I can't die. I can't leave until I'm here to keep my word."
"Because…Slade always keeps his." Babs swallowed, her hands loosening around Jason as she spoke her thoughts to an old…love. Puppy love as it had been, he was still a hero. A tormented one, an abused soul in need of a better outlet.
"Get out of my city." Dick snorted his demand and turned his back on them, feeling nauseous just from having his last, mini meltdown.
"Don't EVER come back here, or I won't be able to save you the next time those creeps decide to find a new set of moving targets."
/
All the bots fell, except a small cluster as the one with Slade's face still remained an enigma.
"He needs a kick in the pants, big time." Ivy drove her vines to crush the last remaining robots.
Bruce sent his rang to swing back as he accompanied the thought wisely.
"How about the face!"
/
The robot was revealed and Bruce gawked before his face went stony again. "Another trick."
~ B? ~
Bruce connected to a broken voice on his comm link.
"Robin? Did you shut down the factory on your end? –
~ We didn't have to…~ Tim cleared his throat as the two were outside the warehouse.
Babs stopped, dragging Tim as he yelped by the tug to the ground.
~ Get DOWN! ~
/
The blast had cooled as Batman; even as he took his hand to his ear to communicate to Tim, it was….
"Tim! Barbara??"
"They must have gotten awa –
Ivy gaped and dragged her allies from the bot that Batman had unmasked as a fake. It was beeping very faintly as a dead giveaway.
"We have to move!"
The trio on both ends had avoided a "Deathstroke trademark" of burying the evidence by "sploding" it. (Bane joke Harley Quinn.)
Both places had gone up in smoke, along with Babs's apartment, while Dick made sure to escape with Slade right before to their last destination on the man's map for the day.
Blockbuster was dead, but Mark Desmond had a sibling who'd do anything to get back at Nightwing, while Dick's frightened eyes watched as his enemy was obliterated in a single blast. He'd saved a city, but it was really always to save himself as the dastardly duo drove to Slade's last stop. The real factory, housing the newest weapons that Robin would be using once he transitioned to Nightwing, and lastly…as Slade's Renegade.
/
Any questions, class? So! The plot, she thickens! Dick has no idea but Tim and Babs are in shambles just like that warehouse that was…blown to bits. Jason sniffed out Dick's abuser based on his history with psychos and it seemed illogical to doubt a Stockholm case. Will Dick finally renounce his old ways for good? What does Slade intend to do now that the first Blockbuster is fifty feet under? Find out and read on! Stay curious!