[Jason Todd's POV]
I lay in bed, trying to clutch my fist as the numbness that still lingered in my body, I couldn't help but replay the fight with that guy over and over in my head. It was unlike any other fight I had ever encountered, and I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I had been beaten so badly without even putting up a fight.
I couldn't bring myself to tell Barbara about it. I was too ashamed to admit that I had been so thoroughly defeated, and I didn't want her to think any less of me.
But what really frightened me was the man's words. As he held my face and sent an electric shock through my body, he had said something about wanting to try his hand at a little art. It sent a chill down my spine, then all of a sudden he said hw was just kidding kidding. He must be some psycho of some sort.
I haven't heard of anyone having such powers here in Gotham before, and another thing that's been bothering me was… Why didn't he save the helpless dude who was being oppressed?
He had all that power but still he just gave a cold stare to a man who could have ended up dead if I didn't interfere, I can't forgive him for that. I can't let such an asshole get away with kicking my ass.
What was that force-field thing he did to block my attacks?
Telekinesis, force-field, electricity, those were the powers he used. I will need to know more about him, at least get to know who the fuck had the guts to do this to me and come up with counter attacks for his powers. I will have revenge the next time we meet and make him pay for what he did to me.
…
[Tom's Hendricks POV]
I was at the bustling bar enjoying a drink and the kind of villians that pulled up to the joint, from there also observing what kind of person they were and how they related with each other.
For the last few weeks I've been trying to keep a low profile at the bar and not stand out, but my white hair makes it impossible as it makes me stick out like a sore thumb.
"Hey new kid, what are you staring at everyone for?Are you a cop or something?" I looked back to a lizardman taking slow steps towards me, it was Killer Croc being paranoid just so I kept looking around. I thought I had been subtle about it but the paranoid reptile found it disturbing.
"A cop? You took a good look at me and think I'm a cop? That's the most absurd thing I've heard all week." I said as I burst into a short laughter which definitely angered the lizard.
"You punk." He said with an enraged tone which was backed up with a growl as he got a tighter grip on his beer bottle and swung it at my head.
No one was trying to stop him even though there was a no fight policy and anyone in their normal senses won't let the lizardman attack the new kid.
Selina was at the bar and just observing, like they've been waiting to see what I could do and if I actually deserved to go to that bar if I can't even protect myself.
"Fine, they want a show? I'll give Them a show." As the bottle approached my head, it got in contact with the deflective field around me and broke. It left his hand swinging by with the half broken bottle.
Before anyone could attempt to comprehend what just happened, I dashed at him with the accelerator beneath my feet and delivered a firm palm to his diaphragm. As my palm came in contact with his body, I increased the momentum and force behind it a little and sent a small shoe across his body using the bioelectricity of his body.
I also eliminate the recoil action that would have sent him flying through the air a few meters back and eventually through a wall. This had him standing in place as his insides must have forced themselves outside but the electricity must have kept them down, he fell on his knees first before falling on his side.
I sent a jolt of electricity through his cells and it had him completely numb for a while, he could not move a muscle and he was somehow conscious.
"Now that's what I call a timeout." I muttered as he turned back to the bar and continued with his drink.
The bar fell completely quiet, no one could understand what just happened and none had the slightest idea how he was able to do that. They just ignored the incident and continued with their previous activities but thought it in their mind how dangerous Tom might actually be.
"That's something you don't see every day." A voice coming from behind the bar caught Tom's attention and it was Selina.
"I guess that's true." I replied to her as I put down the bottle. I wasn't a fan of beer and I was drinking it because I wanted to know what pleasure ecstasy crooks actually got from it.
"He'll be okay, won't he?" She asked with an "I hope so" expression on her face. "Sure he will, I just gave him some time to cool off for a bit." I replied to her and she gave a slight breath of relief but tried not to show it.
"Well I didn't know you could do that." She let out a slight purl as she seemed to have had a sudden interest in me, unlike before.
"There's a lot you don't know about me, I'm not just a pretty face. I just chose to keep to myself." I winked at her then turned to look at the game that was playing on the TV over at a distant corner in the bar.
She leaned over the counter and whispered behind my ears." There's a job that will be taking place in a few days time and we might need someone with your kind of powers, I don't know what the hell you did back there but I guess we might need someone like you on this." She drew back a little and gave a moment of pause, I could only guess she wanted to watch my reaction to her offer." So, what do you say. You in?"
Tilting my head a little to the side, a slight smirk grew across my lips."A theft huh?".
"Yes."
"You don't even know what I can actually do, and yet you want me to join you." I asked. "Is there an issue with that?" She cocked up an eyebrow as she asked me.
"No, not at all. I would have to decline the offer though, but I would really love to see you in your feline costume." I said to her with a half smile on my face, then took my glass to my lips as I took a sip. All while keeping eye contact with her.
She had on a surprised expression on her face but concealed it within a second."I don't know what you meant by that."
"There's no need to feign ignorance, I know you are Catwoman. Not that it's any of my business though." This time she couldn't hide the surprise on her face as she started to ask me questions with caution in her eyes. The strange kid who walked into the bar for the first time a few weeks ago, somehow knew her secret persona.
"How'd you know that?" She didn't seem to deny it anymore but wanted to know how much I knew about her and what I didn't know as she suddenly had her guard up again. Not that it was previously down, she just seemed to be a little carefree that one might not notice whenever she had her guard up.
"I know certain things, but still I know nothing."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" I get that she was surprised and all but her questions were starting to get annoying.
"Let's just leave it at that," I took the last drink from the bottle before placing it on the counter and walking out of the bar.
…
A few days later I went to the library, something I've been doing for some time now. I never read anything in particular, just books about technology and some mechanical engineering books.
The kind of technologies that existed here are merely theoretical in my previous world and they were very fascinating. So I mainly read about how some parts of certain devices and machine worlds and how to make certain things. Small things but more than enough knowledge for me to utilize it in making something completely different, however I desired it to be.
It was closing time at the library and I returned the books I had taken before taking my leave, I sometimes get submerged in my reading and lose track of time. I headed home and something felt off the moment I parked my bike, someone else besides me was within the area.
I just left my bike and took a few steps away from the bike and let myself feel everything that possessed some kind of vector around me. I felt someone on a nearby tree and I wasn't worried because there was nothing the person could do to hurt me.
"Why don't you end this game of hide and seek so you come out and we could at least talk." I said out loud as I felt someone make contact with the ground as if they had dropped from a height.
I turned over to where I had parked my bike and was greeted by the annoying sight of Boy Wonder leaning on it, with a smug look on his face.
At first I wondered how the fucker found me but then again, he's Robin and this was his city.
[Jason Todd's POV]
I've been searching for the guy with white hair for the past few day, since the incident the other day I had been using everything at my disposal to search for him.
At first I did not get anything concerning him, the system had a hard time finding a match for him within the city. I expanded my search on him and I finally got an info on him.
The mysterious white-haired stranger was from Central City and went by the name Tom. Unfortunately, he had been involved in a tragic accident, which resulted in him being diagnosed with amnesia just last year. How he ended up in Gotham and what his purpose was here was still a mystery to me.
Despite my best efforts, Tom's past remained a mystery. It was perplexing to discover that apart from renting a property a month ago, he had no other record in Gotham. The surveillance cameras that usually captured every activity in the city seemed to have barely any footage of him, as if it had been deleted or he had an extraordinary talent for evading them.
As I dug deeper, I found no records of him being a meta-human or having a criminal history. It was as if he was a ghost, existing in the shadows and deliberately covering his tracks.
If I hadn't had that fight with him the other day, I would have thought he was something like your boring everyday citizen but one who hardly left their house.
I decided to pay him a little visit that evening, he entered the yard the same time as I did so I did not go inside. Instead I hid myself on a tree located by his house and observed him come down from his bike but he suddenly stopped advancing and asked whoever was hiding to come out in the open.
There was no one else there and It was obvious he was talking specifically to me. I jumped down in a stealthy fashion and did not make a sound as I made contact with the ground and leaned on his bike, yet he noticed my presence and turned around to face me.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" The first words that came out from his mouth weren't welcoming, not even by a bit.
"What do you think? I tracked your ass here."
"Why?" He asked as he raised an eyebrow, then took a look at me from my head down to my feet and then to my head again as if he was accessing me.
"To settle the score from last time." I brought out my battle staff and took a battle stance, I wasn't willing to be caught off guard.
He signed as he smacked his right hand against his forehead, he didn't see me to pose any kind of threat to him and that was a huge slap on my pride.
I got angry by the thought of that and hurled two batarang at him, one targeted his left side while the other went for the right. I immediately threw another straight at him, I wanted to see if that force-field of his had a blindspot.
They bounced off on contact with the field and the one I threw that targeted his chest was suddenly sent back as if it got deflected by him after it touched the field, I dodged it and darted towards him, then hurled two explosive batarangs at him.
On impact with his shield they exploded, I diverted my approach and was behind him. As I was in the motion of striking him from behind, he tilted his head a little and gave me an irritated look.
My staff bounced off the field and threw me a few paces back. Even with the distraction and smoke from the explosive, he didn't move an inch or look around for me the moment he noticed I was out of his sight. Instead turned to look at me before my stick could hit his filed as if he always knew my position.
"What kind of fool gets his ass handed to him, and comes back for more without learning anything from the previous ass whooping." He said as he made a full turn to face me. "A fight with you is boring if you can't even touch me, in my mind currently I have so many possibilities of things I could do to you from a distance, but that would seem too one sided and look like I'm kicking a stray puppy."
He was right, how do you fight a person that you can't touch. I had thought of that already while preparing to confront him, in order for him to keep up the field he would need to focus to maintain it.
As Tom stood in the yard, I made my move, hurling three sonic devices at his feet. I knew the frequency they emitted was capable of making the ear drums of their target bleed, so I had clogged by ears to protect them from the sonic waves.
However, to my surprise, Tom seemed to withstand the effects of the devices with relative ease. Although he initially appeared to be in pain, he quickly recovered, closing his eyes for a few seconds before standing up straight with his hands in both pockets. He looked at me with a more relaxed, yet still irritated expression on his face.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. How was he able to withstand the sonic attack? Did he have some kind of superhuman ability that made him immune to sonic waves?
As I stood there, still reeling from the attack, the sonic devices suddenly rose into the air and launched towards me. I barely had time to react before they directed their attack at me, causing me to groan in pain.
Quickly, I pulled out my battle staff and used it to destroy the devices. But even as I did so, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was in over my head with this white-haired stranger.
Tom looked at me with a mixture of annoyance and frustration. "Seriously man, what do you want from me?" he asked. "This is getting a little too embarrassing, I mean for you at least."
I knew I had to tread carefully with Tom, It was clear that he was more powerful than I had initially thought.
"I want payback for what you did to me last time." I blurted out, feeling my frustration going through the roof as I couldn't even mask it in my voice. I clenched my fists, feeling a surge of anger wash over me. I was extremely powerless against this guy, none of my attacks had any kind of effect on him, they didn't even make contact with him or make him take our fight seriously.
"Payback you say…" He stroked his chin and pondered something. "So if I rough you up way more than I did last time, then you'll be able to get it through that thick skull of yours of how inferior you really are." A smile grew wide across his cheeks as his voice sounded a little sinister as his chill personality suddenly started to turn into an excited one but with a psychotic look in his eyes.
He stretched out his left hand and a stone flew into his hand, almost as if he called out to it.
The look in his eyes the moment he got hold of the stones had me stumble backwards a little, his pupils suddenly had a hint of red to them. Which was terrifying because his white hair, his red eyes and the look he was having on his face now had him looking like he was suddenly possessed by some demon from hell.
He effortlessly threw a stone located at a reasonable distance from us and near a fence wall. At first I wondered what he was trying to do, aiming at an empty space when his opponent was right in front of him.
I heard two sounds of contacts, one following after the other. To my surprise the stone passed through the tree and hit the wall behind it and from the sound it gave, I was sure the stone was stuck in the wall.
This sudden presence and action sent chills down my spine as it seemed like he was finally going to strike back, and this time was going to put in a little effort. I subconsciously took a huge gulp.
"Now your turn." He said with a grin of his face as he slowly turned to me, while a handful of stones hurled themselves into his hand.
[Tom's Hendricks POV]
I currently held five stones in my hands, my excitement brewing as I saw the look on his face, I was about putting Boy Wonder in his place. Fuck, I got too excited that it had me rhyming. "Let me show you just how easy it would be to kill you if I ever intended to." I took a stone to my right and as I felt the stone my brain started working some calculations according to what I was about to do: The mass of the stone, the air resistance, the distance between myself and my target, the trajectory at which the stone needed to travel to arrive at each point, the force needed.
All these calculations took place within a millisecond and sometimes I don't bother with the calculations because immediately I input the thoughts, my brain starts calculating and once it's done my body follows through.
I launched the stone at Robin but just before it left my hand I increased the acceleration, leaving him no chance to react to my attack. Before he could put up his guard, the stone flew by his head and grazed his face.
He whimpered in fear as he slowly reached for his face and looked at his bloody glove. His eyes wide opened wide open and his feet seemed like they wouldn't move. Mainly because I held him in place by manipulating the wind around him and made a slight increase to the effect of gravity on him and he couldn't move reflexively like he normally does.
I hurled three more at him and they each grazed different parts of him. One grazed his left thigh, another made a shallow graze to the right side of his neck, while the last made a slice through his left ear.
The look on his face was divine, I burst into a psychotic type of laughter from the sight of it. He stood there frozen, I was no longer influencing his motor skills in any way so I could tell it was from the fear I had etched into his brain.
He regained himself and jumped backwards, increasing the distance between us as he regained a bit of his composure.
As he tried to steady himself, I sent a stone at him but with a froce his body could withstand. As the stone came in contact with him, he was knocked off his feet and sent flying into a nearby tree. His head hit the trunk hard, he slowly reached for his head with an arm, as if he had felt a sharp pain shoot through his skull.
He struggled to get back up as I calmly approached him. I stopped in front of him and looked down at him with a mix of amusement and contempt.
"You still haven't learned your lesson, have you?" I said, my voice dripping with disdain. "I could kill you right now, and no one would even know. But I won't. Not because I'm feeling merciful, but because you're not worth the trouble."
"What are you?" He asked with genuine curiosity and fear in his tone.
"Me?... Let's just say I'm the thing you never want to piss off, just get out of here before I end up taking things up a notch."
Maybe after this he'd piss his pants and report me to his daddy for bullying him and I'm sure Batman would assume it to be scuffle between kids because I have no criminal records of some sort, or he'd hold on to what little shred of pride he has left and just accept his inferiority.
"Oh and, don't breathe a word of this to Batman or anyone. If he comes for me and disturbs my peace, I'll find you and I'll show you what I'm really capable of.
And trust me when I say you haven't seen a glimpse of what I can really do." I turned around and walked in the direction of my door when I stopped and tilted my head a little to see Robin still standing there. "Now move along and don't let me see you in my yard again, because I can promise you that you will absolutely regret it." After that I walked away as he picked up his battle staff and he shot his grapple gun into the night air and zipped away.
Please kindly visit my to read over 10 chapters ahead./Maverick_DaSupreme