Jack Kadere didn't bother hiding the way he looked at her—even when her brows furrowed in clear irritation. But he had a reason for staring. If she really was who he thought she was—Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman—then this wasn't just any world. This was the DC Universe.
First he landed in Marvel, now he was in DC?
Well, why not? Comic fans had been mixing the two for decades. If there was chaos to be had, Jack was here for it.
He smirked, no, he smiled—just as he opened his mouth to speak, a long, toned leg whipped toward him like a missile. It came so fast it blurred, headed straight for his face.
Unfortunately for her, Jack didn't have a foot fetish.
A single thought sparked in his mind:
Infinite Replication.
The moment the attack was directed at him, his power activated. The woman's physical traits—balance, speed, flexibility—flooded his system. His reflexes sharpened on the spot.
Just before her foot connected, Jack instinctively leaned back, letting it graze past his face by a fraction of an inch. In the same motion, he swept his leg forward and kicked the back of her standing knee.
Not hard enough to injure—but precise enough to unbalance her.
As her posture broke and she stumbled forward, she tried to recover by planting a foot on the bed for leverage. But Jack was already moving. He reached up, caught her extended ankle, and pulled her downward.
With one leg grounded and the other trapped, her body dropped straight into a split—landing squarely on top of Jack's chest.
And then—
Riiiiip.
The unmistakable sound of tearing fabric filled the cell. Apparently, the prison jumpsuits weren't designed to accommodate gymnastic-level flexibility.
Both of them froze for a beat.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Don't look at me. If you broke it, I'm not paying for it."
The words left his mouth before he could filter them. Her face went from blank to furious in seconds.
Pay? Pay?!
She hadn't said a word about money, and now this guy was implying—what, that it was her fault? Her fist came flying down without hesitation, aiming somewhere that would have left Jack regretting every sentence he'd ever spoken.
He moved fast, twisting her leg aside and shoving her away before the punch could land. She flipped backward, landed in a crouch, and immediately lunged again.
This woman was no ordinary brawler. She had street-fighting instincts, the agility of an Olympic gymnast, and the precision of a martial artist. Muay Thai, Krav Maga, dirty alley-born strikes—Catwoman had mastered them all.
Jack smiled.
Good. It meant more data.
As she charged, he met her head-on.
Bang!
Their fists collided.
Her strike. His copy.
She paused briefly, eyebrows raised. That wasn't normal. But she didn't stop.
Kick, block, sweep, elbow—her movements were quick and calculated. But so were his. Jack mirrored every move she made, down to the smallest twitch of muscle memory.
It was like fighting herself.
To Selina, it was maddening.
At first, she thought it was coincidence—maybe he'd trained in the same styles. But the more they clashed, the more obvious it became: this wasn't learned. It was identical. Even her subconscious combat habits, her unique footwork transitions, the tricks only she used—he replicated them perfectly.
"You bastard! If you've got guts, stop copying me!" she snapped mid-fight.
Jack laughed. The replication wasn't just physical—it was experiential. His power, inherited from Protégé, didn't just copy skills. It folded in the combat experience too. As if he'd been using her techniques for years.
Even learning through skill books wouldn't be this smooth.
"You're Catwoman, all right," he said, dodging her roundhouse with a grin.
"Oh, you're clever. Want a cookie?" she shot back.
Jack smirked. "Still not convinced? Come on, hit me again. You're not going to win."
Catwoman sneered, "With the same moves, if I can't beat you, you sure can't beat me either!"
Jack Kadere grinned, deliberately smug. "That's not necessarily true. I was just toying with the cat earlier, and now…"
His voice trailed off teasingly.
Toying with a cat?Hmmph, let's see how long that smug face looks after I'm done restructuring it!, she fumed internally.
She didn't stop to wonder whether "cat" was a hint he knew her identity. She didn't care. The only thing on her mind now was one goal:
Scratch this guy to death.
With a fierce shout, she pushed off from the ground and charged forward again.
Jack's Infinite Replication ability was already proving powerful—copying skills on contact, matching her move for move like some living mirror. It reminded him of a certain eye-copying ninja ability he'd once read about.
But Jack was more interested in what came next.
Infinite Stacking.
Replication was fun for sparring. But stacking? That's where things got real.
"Infinite Stacking—One Time!"
Yeah, it sounded kind of dramatic, like something straight out of an anime. But who cared? Sometimes a little flair made things more fun.
The moment he activated it, his entire body surged—reaction time, coordination, flexibility, strength. All of it spiked instantly.
Catwoman's leg came sweeping toward him in a vicious whip kick—but he didn't budge.
Instead, Jack bent at an unnatural angle, his spine twisting mid-air like a dancer in zero gravity. The kick whooshed past his head.
Catwoman didn't hesitate. She launched a flurry of strikes: side kicks, back kicks, jabs, hooks, elbows. Every move was a calculated blur of speed and skill.
Jack dodged every single one.
Too slow.
To him, it felt like she was moving underwater. What would've required blocking earlier now only took a slight lean, a subtle shift of weight.
"Infinite Stacking—Two Times!"
Just as Catwoman pivoted into another kick, Jack had already predicted it. He stepped into her movement and slammed his shoulder into hers like a battering ram.
The impact echoed off the concrete.
Catwoman staggered back several steps before hitting the wall, one hand gripping her shoulder as her breath hitched in pain. The nerves in her arm screamed—half her shoulder had gone numb.
She clenched her jaw.
Not just because of the pain—but because she recognized that move. It was one of hers.
Only… she had never executed it with that much speed, that much force. There was a precision and strength in Jack's version that surpassed her own. That shoulder check had used a precise kind of internal leverage she hadn't fully mastered.
"Who the hell are you?" she hissed, cradling her shoulder and eyeing him like he was a predator.
Jack chuckled, wiping imaginary dust off his prison jumpsuit. "I'm Batman!"