'Huh. So this is what it feels like.'
As someone who'd made a habit of dropping onto other people's cars at night, even Rowan had to admit it wasn't fun being on the receiving end. And since he didn't enjoy it, neither did Ichor, who crawled from beneath the car, slithered out the window, and climbed the chassis to meet their uninvited guest.
Ted Grant, better known as Wildcat, was dressed in his usual suit, though someone had painted it a garish green that clashed horribly with the original navy blue.
His cowl, meanwhile, appeared untouched, with short ears and a disturbingly realistic cat mouth that covered him from nose to chin. Given its… Appearance, Rowan might have mistaken it for a gas mask if the Batcomputer's schematics hadn't confirmed it was a purely aesthetic choice.
Such was Ted's way.
Protective gear was 'cumbersome,' in Ted's words, and Bruce had never pressed the issue. Wise of him, considering the old man could probably beat him into the pavement six or seven times out of ten without a single piece of technology to his name. And if the Dark Knight couldn't take him, Rowan and Ichor certainly weren't going to, but the Shade had something Ted lacked—it could change shape.
And it could do so freely.
That should have been enough to ensure a swift victory, but like many in Gotham, Ted had Faith…
He also had a cross, which he'd wrapped around his fist and was currently using to pummel the Shade right on top of them.
Fingers caressing the steering wheel, Rowan mused to himself. "Strange."
How very strange, indeed.
He felt the punches, as always.
He even felt the sting of Faith, but where before it had been like acid poured over raw flesh with salt smeared into the wound, this was closer to brushing a hot iron by accident. Faith was a funny thing. You could believe in something and still harbour doubts, and still wonder in the dark hours.
And Faith left no room for any of that. It was complete and voluntary surrender to something greater than yourself, and it was precisely that surrender that gave it teeth against the Infernal.
A person consumed by Faith didn't fight Demons because they believed they could win. They fought because the possibility of losing had simply never crossed their mind; because they were certain they were protected, more certain of that, perhaps, than they were of the sun rising tomorrow.
Fear was naturally Faith's antithesis, and the Toxin was nothing if not fear and insanity distilled to its purest, most corrosive form. And a mind drowning in terror couldn't hold onto devotion any more than a drowning man could hold a lit match.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Rowan shook his head, a shit-eating grin splitting his lips.
He could have had the Shade knock Ted off the car and been done with it, but to what end? With Ted's experience and that grappling hook of his, the old man would track them down in a matter of minutes.
Worse still, this safehouse was the best stocked of the lot. If anything broke in transit, they would be looking at two or three more runs to different safehouses to recoup what was lost.
'Your move, Ichor.'
With Rowan's go-ahead, Ichor lunged, all too eager to return what it had been tanking.
Its fist warped mid-swing into a hammerhead that it drove straight at the old boxer, who sidestepped it like he'd seen it coming a week ago.
But Ichor's Shapeshifting wasn't so predictable. The Shade couldn't defy inertia or physics, and thus couldn't reverse the swing and throw a second attack in time, but it could retract its overextended limb at a speed that bordered on obscene. The hammer-fist snapped back and caught Ted flush on the way in, knocking the old man clean off the roof.
Ichor's grin lasted exactly as long as it took for Ted to fire his grappling hook into the rear mirror and swing himself back around the car in a full arc. The retired vigilante landed on unsteady feet and pressed in tight, nullifying the Shade's reach advantage in an instant.
Up close, Ted could pepper it with crosses and hooks all day while the Shade struggled to generate meaningful momentum. And every time the Shade dared go on the offense with [Shapeshifting], that Faith-wrapped fist was already there to punish it. "Is that all you got? I've sparred with tougher bags!"
The Shade rarely showed its temper.
It had never needed to.
Most enemies focused on Rowan as the Conjurer and treated Ichor as an extension rather than a threat in its own right, and the few who didn't were too smart or simply too chickenshit to taunt it to its face.
The only time he'd ever watched it truly lose control was in that bathroom with Barbara and the shooter, and that had been a response to its Conjurer nearly dying, not wounded pride.
But a Demon that didn't show its temper was not a Demon without one.
The Shade was born from the blood of a Lord of Hell whose very existence embodied Destruction, Ruin, and Domination. It was every one of Rowan's Sins given form, and Sins, by their very nature, did not take well to being humiliated.
The Shade screeched and threw itself at Ted, ignoring the Faith scorching its body as it caught the boxer around the midsection which caused the both of them to fly off the roof. In the same breath, a shadowy shape suddenly slammed into the windshield.
For the first time since he'd met her, Ivy let loose an undignified yelp.
Rowan, to his credit, only nearly swore as white lenses met his through the cracked glass.
"Rowan…"
Red hair whipping behind her, Barbara mouthed his name with an eerie calm that had no business being on the face of someone Afflicted with the Toxin AND clinging to a fast speeding car. Little Ms. Gordon didn't even look all that bothered by the speed or the swerving or the fact that the boy behind the wheel was visibly losing his grip on both.
"Sonuvabitch!"
Just as the Supra tipped past the point of no return, Rowan unbuckled Ivy's seatbelt, kicked the passenger door clean off its hinges and grabbed her by the waist.
For a fraction of a second, their eyes locked through his visor, the glass between them feeling thinner than it ever had, and then he—under her astonished gaze—threw her out, stacking the air beneath her with everything he had. "[Spectral Shield]! [Spectral Shield]! [Sp—!" A few scratches here and there were probably unavoidable, but the Spell was built to absorb impact. She'd be fine… Mostly.
He wasted no time on the worry, swinging to the front of the car to pry Barbara off the hood.
Her fists were love taps compared to what he faced on the regular, but they were landing in all the wrong places at all the wrong times, and one particularly well-aimed shot to the side of his head threw his aim off just enough that his Batclaw missed the ledge he'd been aiming for. And down they went like bags of cement, with Rowan sadly, though purposefully bearing the brunt of the impact himself.
His shoulder popped out of its socket on impact, and it took everything he had to swallow the grunt before they skidded to a halt on a deserted and trashed street. Two miles back, Ichor and Ted were still going at it while a ring of Afflicted circled and cheered them on.
A little under a mile from where he lay, Ivy sat in the road looking about as confused as a newborn foal taking its first look at the world.
And then there was him, flat on his back with Barbara Gordon on top of him.
"Fuck... Is there anything else you want to throw my way?!!"
Rowan snarled at the sky, then unceremoniously shoved the girl off with a little more force than he'd ever care to admit, before hauling himself upright.
His breathing came rough and ragged as he leaned against a dead streetlamp, the same one that had been dark for years because the city couldn't be bothered to fund its repair, and let out a dry, miserable laugh. He should have known something was coming the moment he laid eyes on the Supra…
Nothing good in his life ever came free, and they rarely, if ever lasted. The burning wreckage a block up where he stood could attest to that. "Why don't you just hit me with lightning while you're at it?" Rowan growled.
But God wasn't listening, and if he was, the Most High clearly couldn't give less of a fuck.
"Well? Smite me, Almighty Smiter!" With an echoing roar, he slammed his dislocated shoulder against the rusted cast iron and felt it jar back into place. "Ngh! Fuck!"
A bead of sweat rolled into his eye, and only after he squeezed it shut did he notice the crack running down his visor that was just wide enough to expose a sliver of red skin under. Now, the visor wasn't nearly as expensive as the rest of the suit, but at the rate Rowan was burning through them, Bruce might actually start charging him for replacements.
He was still tracing the fissure with his fingertips when his wrists and neck began to burn.
Rowan's gaze snapped to the fight down the street.
Ted, old and graying as he was, still had a showman's flair that the Afflicted clearly appreciated. Not like it had taken much to rally a handful of gymrats to his side, and they seemed more than happy to pile onto Ichor. The only silver lining was that their Faith was even weaker than Ted's, amounting to little more than pinpricks, but Rowan's vision was starting to tint at the edges all the same.
Nose scrunched, he hoisted Barbara onto one shoulder and marched toward the fight.
"You…"
Ivy had barely gotten two words out before the unconscious girl was dumped in her arms.
"Babysit for a sec. I'll be quick."
He let his mind cool as he walked, or tried to. The breathing exercises helped, pulling air in through the nose and pushing it out through clenched teeth until the worst of the heat had been smothered under… The closer he got, the less clearly he could think, and the less clearly he thought, the louder the whispers became.
'Look at you, all broody and menacing!'
The Joker's grinning visage flickered into existence at the corner of his eye, matching his pace with that infuriating, rubber-limbed gait.
'Batsy would be so proud! Go on, give them a show! Scratch that itch, Row-Row! You know you want to…'
His jaw tightened, his fists clenched, but he wisely kept his eyes forward and his mouth shut. By the time Rowan reached them, the gymrats had already formed a loose semicircle, hooting and hollering as Ichor tanked another haymaker.
"Wild-cat! Wild-cat! Wild-cat!
"Knock that thing out, old man!"
"That's the champ right there! THAT'S THE CHAMP!"
One of the walking slabs of protein powder quickly noticed his approach and broke from the pack with a grin. He looked the vigilante over like he was sizing up a five-year-old who'd wandered into the wrong gym, then flexed a bicep the size of Rowan's head while giving it a loving pat.
"So this is the big bad Imp, huh? Don't look like much to me, shortie. See these?"
He bounced both pecs proudly.
"Bet you can't even handle a single pu—"
His nose caved with such a thunderous crunch that every head in the circle turned from the fight to the short vigilante currently stepping over their boy's limp body.
"Out the way, motherfuckers."
Rowan intoned, and to their credit, whatever survival instincts the Toxin hadn't chewed through kicked in fast enough for them to part without being told twice.
"Gents! A new contender appea—"
The self-appointed announcer's hype died in his throat as Rowan's three glowing eyes found his through the crack.
Ichor seized the opening, slithering back through the fissure in his visor and clinging to its Conjurer.
"Imp…" Fists up and ready, Ted rolled his shoulder, cracked his neck and grinned. "I trained the boy who trained you. Let's see if any of it stuck!"
Ted came in fast, leading with a jab-cross combination that Rowan barely slipped past. followed by a check hook so sharp it caught the side of his jaw and rocked his balance before he could catch a breath.
The old boxer's stance shifted between each combination like water finding new channels, cutting angles that forced Rowan to constantly readjust his footing on the uneven asphalt.
'Would it kill these corrupt bitches to fix the damn road?!'
The retired vigilante patiently circled him, picking his style apart with shots that landed just a half-second before Rowan expected them, then feinted low to draw his guard down and smashed him across the temple with an overhand.
Rowan staggered back, clumsily throwing a wild hook to buy space which Ted effortlessly caught with his forearms. The retired vigilante answered with a three-piece to the body that left Rowan wheezing through clenched teeth, while slipping inside his reach to target softer organs.
Even Afflicted and well past the age where most fighters called it quits, Ted Grant fought with the ferocity of a twenty-year-old, the recklessness of a teenager who'd heard one too many 'yo mama' jokes in recess, and the cunning of someone who had been throwing hands long before Rowan drew his first breath in either lifetime.
But the old man was fading, and out of breath, while Rowan was only getting started, fueled by the boundless energy of youth, the instincts of a Demon, and reflexes that were nothing if not superhuman… And as the cherry on top, he also knew how to throw a mean-ass punch.
The impact launched Ted seven meters backward.
His boots carved twin furrows through the rubble before his spine met a parked van and caved the door inward.
Ted peeled himself off the dented metal, spat blood, and settled back into his stance. He came again, weaving past a wide hook to plant a counter right on the button that snapped the Demon's head sideways. But Rowan simply ate it up, answering with a body shot that lifted the old boxer off his feet again.
Ted rose slower this time, only to receive a straight which threw him on his back.
He rolled to one knee, fists raised out of decades of muscle memory.
He tried to plant his feet, and was dropped a third time by a hammerfist.
He tried to clinch, but an elbow quickly disconnected him from his senses…
The follow-up knee sent him sprawling.
Then came the grappling hook, fired out of desperation into Rowan's chestplate with a metallic thunk. Ted hauled on the cable with everything his battered arms had left, roaring through bloodied teeth as he tried to reel the boy into the pocket where his flurry could do nasty work.
He paled when Rowan coiled the cable around his forearm, dug his heels in, and pulled.
The clothesline that met him at the end of the line finally put a period on the fight that never should've happened, but did anyway.
And with it, the chanting that had been shaking the street moments ago died, replaced by a stillness born not of the Toxin, but of the understanding that what they'd just witnessed was not something any of gymrats wanted turned on them. Even the Toxin-fueled bravado that had been pumping through their veins moments ago seemed to have evaporated.
And again, they split as Rowan grabbed an unconscious Ted by the ankle and strode in the other direction.
The other Afflicted who had been milling about in the street instantly cleared a path too.
Some were pressed against parked cars, others backing into doorways they hadn't bothered with before. A few couldn't even look at him, dropping their eyes to the ground the same way Gotham's petty criminals did when the Bat passed overhead.
He found Ivy exactly where he'd left her, sitting on the curb with Barbara draped across her lap and her potted plant close to her chest.
Poison Ivy watched him approach with an expression he was too tired to decipher, though wariness, curiosity, and something dangerously close to awe all seemed to be fighting for space.
"... Our ride is wrecked."
"Plenty more where that came from." Rowan said, putting his whole fist through the window of a van parked on the curb.
Like with the Supra, its owner came rushing out with complaints already locked and loaded.
"Hey!"
Unlike the Supra, one scathing glare from Rowan sent him scrambling back inside before a single word was exchanged.
"A rape van… Really?"
"Just get in the fucking van, Ivy."