Friday 20th March 2009, 20:10.
New Jersey,
Gotham City,
Gotham Heights.
Panting, Esau came to a stop at the top of the building and looked over the edge to see Batman and Batgirl dealing with Black Masks men. "Haha." He laughed, taking a few moments to catch his breath as he looked down with a smile. "I may not like your no-kill policy, but I'll admit you both saved my ass."
The smile on his face, one of relief at escaping a close call, didn't disappear as he looked to his left and saw a building a few metres apart from this one. It wasn't a huge distance to cover, but nonetheless a big one, definitely requiring him to put some serious effort into the jump. In preparation, he moved back to the opposite end of the building, he focused on the distance and after a calming breath, rushed forwards.
As he reached the edge, he leapt forwards, or that was the plan anyway.
He realised something was wrong as he neared the edge of the building when something shifted out of the corner of his eye. A shadow figure made a move, but it was too late to do anything having fully committed to the running jump. Instead, as he jumped, he pushed more power into his legs, twisting his footing a little more so that as he soared through the air, he spun back around.
This proved to save him from what could have been a dangerous fall and a potential, debilitating injury as a foot collided with his raised guard in midair. However, the force behind the kick, plus his less-than-graceful jump sent him crashing into the roof with a grunt as he rolled across the floor. Esau went with the roll and came to his knees, looking to see Robin land on the roof with the grace of an acrobat, a staff held securely in one hand as he stared at Esau with narrowed eyes.
"This is the end of the line, Black Hood," Robin stated, his voice seeming to teeter on the edge of puberty.
It put into perspective just how young Batman's first sidekick was.
"Just give up, this is a fight you won't win."
"Ha! Cheeky little shit, aren't you?" Esau joked and all Robin did was give a smirk. "But I'm afraid I can't do that. Got things to do an a city to save, you know how it is."
"Robin's face hardened. "Killing criminals doesn't save a city. It only makes you as bad as them." It was Esau this time whose eyes narrowed, Robin's words reminding him of Barbara's anger at what Black Hood had done; he had done. "And I'm going to stop you."
"You can try." Esau shot back as he rose to his feet.
Robin mirrored him, both of them dropping down into a basic stance, but Esau's, as Robin noted was full of holes. However, the positioning of his feet and the way Esau's gaze flickered over his form showed he had more experience than his stance portrayed.
'Always did say I wanted to fight a member of the Bat Family.' Esau thought to himself, gaze narrowing further as his heart began to beat faster, but his breathing began to even out. He had felt this feeling before, but it had been a long time since he had come up against someone he thought could prove a genuine threat to him. 'Not exactly how I wanted it to go down though.'
There was a brief interlude as the two studied one another closer before Esau charged forward, Robin meeting it head-on. The blonde knew though that Robin would have the advantage in range thanks to his staff and he didn't want to take any chances. Luckily, Esau was confident in the size difference and he had somewhat of a plan that even he would consider stupid, which said a great deal about what he thought of his chances.
'What's he doing?' Robing wondered as he watched Black Hood raise the gun, but the gun wasn't even aimed in his general direction, it was aiming in the completely wrong direction. Though what Black Hood was planning became abundantly clear when he threw the gun right at him, Robin barely ducked out of the way. The unorthodox and downright stupid plan of throwing one's weapon away caught him completely off-guard, thus leaving him completely exposed to Esau's charge.
Esau tackled Robin, picking up the much lighter fighter with ease before diving forwards, slamming his opponent into the ground back first. As a result of the impact, the staff slipped from Robin's grasp and rolled along the ground, he laying there dazed and winded as Esau took top position.
Nonetheless, Robin had been on the receiving end of numerous super-powered blows before and quickly recovered as Esau's fist came within inches of slamming into his face. He moved his head to one side, allowing the fist to hit the solid concrete roof and he would give the new vigilante props for not flinching away in pain but instead preparing to strike again with his other hand. But that follow-up strike was turned into Robin's advantage when he put Black Hood into a triangle choke.
Gasping as he felt his air supply get gradually cut off, Esau collapsed to his knees, one hand bracing against the floor and the other trying to pry Robin's legs from around his neck. His eyes bulged further, face reddening a deeper, darker colour when Robin tightened his leg muscles as to put more pressure on his throat.
'Shit!' Esau cursed as he saw his gaze darken around the edges. 'No! Not gonna let it end here!' With great determination, Esau planted his feet firmly on the ground and lifted Robin up into the air, his free hand keeping Robin held in place by his cape, twisting and wrapping it around his arm tightly. Then, upon reaching the right height, he dropped to his knees, swinging his arm down that Robin had a hold of, combining it with the momentum of his fall.
Robin wasn't blind to this though and while keeping his legs tight around his neck, braced his hands against the floor to catch himself. Even then, the force behind the strike forced his arms to buckle, but he managed to unhook his legs in time to avoid a serious back injury.
But this was what Esau had wanted, for he still had hold of Robin's cape.
Smirking, he pulled on the cape and slammed his knee right into Robin's back, causing him to gasp out in pain as the fabric of his cape came undone. This was followed by a sidekick that sent Robin crashing to the ground.
'Nows my chance!' The blonde thought as he saw Robin shake his head slowly as to regain his bearings.
Turning around, Black Hood took another running leap and landed upon the next building, rolling as to mitigate the amount of force that would run through his legs. Once he got to his feet, he repeated the process again and again. Esau was actually quite pleased with himself as he managed to make it a total of ten buildings before Robin caught up with him.
Robin was smaller, lithe and built for speed and agility.
Esau on the other hand had put on muscle to give him extra power when dealing with thugs. He was by no means slow, but prior to becoming Black Hood, he had always been like Robin in that he favoured speed over power. However, fighting thugs on the streets was different to fighting thugs in the ring, in that there was no guarantee it was going to be a one-on-one fight. In order to be more effective, Esau had focused on building up his power so that he could take out thugs in the fewest number of blows possible.
However, while he was proud to have cleared ten buildings before Robin caught, he wasn't exactly when what looked to be a modified bola wrapped around his ankles.
The ground rushed up to meet him and Esau curled himself up into a ball and braced himself for impact. As soon as he landed, he felt the air rush out of his lungs and tried his hardest to roll sideways. Eventually, he came to a stop at the edge of the building, but only due to rolling into the wall that acted as a barrier.
Out of the corner of his eye, Esau could see Robin land on the roof, his staff back in his hand. "That's some aim you got." He grunted out as he sat up, his sore body protesting slightly, but Esau ignored it in favour of slowly moving one hand down towards his Bowie knife.
"Yeah, that's some kick you got," Esau smirked when he saw Robin shift awkwardly, no doubt the kid would be feeling that for a few weeks. "Dirty trick you pulled, doing that." Even though he said that Robin was far from insulted, he himself had used dirty tactics like that to gain an advantage over a superior or equal opponent.
No, he wasn't insulted just irritated that he had fallen for it.
He had thought he was better than that.
He was trained by Batman to use dirty tactics like that against superior opponents. Robin knew or at least thought that he should have been able to see similar attacks coming and was annoyed with himself that he hadn't.
"Yeah." With his free hand, Esau scratched his cheek, glad that he had decided to wear a face mask to cover the lower portion of his face and also sow that into his hood. It meant that even after all that, his hood was still up covering his face. "Well, I ain't stupid enough to believe I can beat you in a one-on-one fight just yet."
"Just yet? What makes you think that's gonna change." Robin questioned almost amused by the thought.
If Black Hood thought that he would be able to close the gap between them anytime soon then he would be mistaken. Robin had been trained by Batman and it would take more than a few fights to close the gap between them.
The idea that he could be was almost insulting.
Esau shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "I don't think." Just as Robin got within arms reach, Esau pulled his knife free while jumping to his feet. In a single flowing motion that even surprised himself, he raised his knees high enough to cut the ropes and then used that same knife to go for a downward slash aimed at Robin's shoulder. "I know I will!"
Robin though had more than enough time to react to the strike and parrying the knife to one side, then went to perform a strike of his own with the other end of his stick. Esau however, managed to grip hold of the stick, though the speed of the staff made his palm sting, and he winced slightly. The two stuck there for a moment, pushing against one another, Esau's superior strength eventually won out.
But Batman's sidekick used this to his advantage as all skilled martial artists would.
He fell backwards and Esau came with him, caught off guard by the sudden lack of resistance he was suddenly facing. The young sidekick rolled onto the ground and as soon as his back hit the ground, his foot lashed out and kicked Esau in the stomach. The blonde gasped in pain as a foot struck his stomach and sent him flying over Robin's head.
Esau rolled to a stop though and turned to face Robin who was beginning to charge towards him. 'Fuck! This is not going good.' He cursed as he pulled out his second knife and defended as best as he could against Robin, only to stumble backwards from a strike to the head a few seconds later. The blonde quickly recovered and managed to duck under a straight thrust and spun round to slash at Robin's side.
Yet Batman's protégé masterfully manoeuvred his staff in a way that intercepted Esau's blade mid-swing, striking against his forearm. This took all the power out of it, something Robin used to his advantage as he went to swipe at Esau once more.
Seeing this, Esau was forced to dodge, his knives weren't long enough to successfully parry let alone block the staff strikes, especially with the surprising amount of power behind each strike. Even so, while the strikes were faster than he was used to, Esau had long since learned to weave his head between strikes from his time street fighting, which is exactly what he did. But as he did he could feel the wind produced from each strike blowing through his hair and on more than one occasion, he could feel the side of the staff scrape against his ear as he just barely avoided the thrust.
An occasion that was appearing more and more.
Knowing that he couldn't keep this up forever, Esau smacked the next thrust to one side with his forearm, wincing slightly as he did. To make sure that Robin couldn't recover quickly, Esau placed one foot on the staff before swinging his other arm around.
Robin, to avoid the knife strike leaned his head back while also bracing one hand against the ground, while he kept a tight grip on his staff with the other. Tensing his arm up, he swung his body weight around and slammed a roundhouse kick that Esau didn't see coming and so, stumbled back, his lip busted.
'Need to find a way to escape.' He managed to knock Robin's staff to the ground once more as Batman's protégé quickly resumed his attack and went for a slash at his body, but Robin expertly dodged and landed a kick to Esau's stomach. 'Batman and Batgirl will have finished up with Black Masks thugs any minute now!'
Robin then placed one end of the staff against the ground, spinning around it as he held the bar before lashing out with a double-footed stomp to Esau's chest. With a cry of pain, Esau crashed into the wall, feeling the familiar pain of some of his ribs cracking.
"You might as well give up," Robin suggested as if genuinely concerned for Esau's safety. Yet the blonde knew it was nothing more than an act. "Save us both a lot of trouble."
"Oh yeah," Esau smirked, but Robin couldn't see that, what he did see was Esau reaching into his jacket and tensing in preparation. "Sorry, but giving up really isn't my style."
"And what is your style? Getting your ass kicked?" Robin snarked as he watched Black Hood grasp hold of something inside his jacket. "'Cos that's what's happening. You got nowhere to go and for whatever reason, Batman wants to speak to you."
It took a few moments for that to register in Esau's mind. "Batman wants to speak to me?" He whispered, honestly astounded by that piece of news.
Why would Batman of all people want to speak to him?
Was it a trap to lure Black Hood in and arrest him?
Or was it for some other reason?
"Yeah, didn't say why though." Robin took a slow step forwards towards Black Hood, very cautious of what he might have a hold of. The new vigilante had proven himself to be very skilled, nowhere near his, Batgirls or Batman's level, but definitely someone to be wary of. It was no wonder why the various thugs that Black Mask had struggled to stop him.
What he lacked in skill and physical ability, he made up for in unpredictability and just the sheer breadth of his ability to improvise and come up with plans on the fly. It was honestly astounding and quite a bit frightening. Not to mention he just didn't quit, Robin had fought plenty of guys and girls that usually just gave up the moment they realised they were outmatched.
Even some of the more dangerous criminals out there knew that sometimes it was best to surrender. Black Hood on the other hand didn't, he just kept getting up for more and no matter how many times Robin had shown him that no matter what he did, Robin would always have an answer for it.
Despite all that, Black Hood just kept coming.
It was like every time Robin thwarted his attempts to gain an advantage, instead of becoming disheartened it only served to inspire Black Hood to try again and again. Compared to most of the villains Robin usually faced, it was certainly a little worrying and unnatural. Most gave up after a short exchange with them unless they were involved in a criminal organisation, in which case failure had worse outcomes.
"Huh, who'd a thought." Slowly, Esau began to remove the object he was holding. "But I'm gonna have to put that on hold because I saw Black Mask take off before our little fight. Once I'm done with him then I might take Batman up on that talk. Until then though…" From Esau's pocket, he pulled out a grenade and Robin looked at it in shock.
"What the hell?!" Robin jumped back slightly as to put some space between himself and Black Hood. "Oi! You really that desperate to escape!"
"Yep." Esau quipped and pulled the pin free with a smirk before he tossed it over the top of the wall.
Robin watched it lift into the air and slowly descend back to the ground.
In the silence that permeated the roof, the two occupants and fighters could hear the sound of people mingling in the street down below.
'Shit!' With a glare at Black Hood, Robin charged forwards and jumped off the building after the grenade. He angled himself so that he fell face first and kept his body completely streamlined so as to fall faster. Once the grenade was in range, he grabbed hold of it and then opened his cape as to act as a parachute and slow his descent.
With a grunt, he rolled and launched the grenade up into the air as people around him jumped away in fright.
Only, when the grenade exploded it was filled with confetti that fell down upon the street.
"What?" Robin questioned aloud as he looked back up at the roof. 'He tricked me!' Realising this, Robin used his grappling gun to bring him back up to the roof, ignoring the confused mumbling of the people of Gotham below as he did so.
Flipping onto the roof, he looked around only to find no sight of Black Hood at all. 'Shit! He got away.' Clicking his teeth in annoyance at falling for such a cheap escape tactic, Robin turned and moved back the way he came to meet up with Batman and Batgirl.
He just knew that Batgirl would tease him about this failure.
Sometimes he hated it when Barbara acted the part of his honorary older sister, just because she did it so well.