CHAPTER 11

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[Star City. March 13, 15:19 PDT. 2009

David Lance POV]

My encounter with Deathstroke had left a bad taste in my mouth.  Making it painfully clear that I needed to sharpen my martial skills, or I would die before long.

I had to prepare myself to face his kind, soldiers forged in blood, ruthless mercenaries.

I couldn't depend on Batman to save me all my life, or Dinah, someday, sometime, I would find myself in front of the jaws of death, and I would have no one to save me but myself.

I had no excuses.

I had all the necessary tools to overcome myself, I was physically stronger than Batman, I had advantages that others didn't have, I just had to learn how to use them.

For this reason, I had decided to start going alone to the streets of Star City, patrolling the dangerous areas of the city for my part, I needed to learn more than I could under my sister's wings.

And somehow, I felt that by becoming independent I would learn something, something crucial that I was missing.

But enough of that, today I had a mission to catch a serial killer that had so far escaped the Star City police.

The police had no leads on this killer other than that he had killed three possible mobsters in the city, which told me that this killer was one motivated by money, not only that, his way of killing was clean, the corpses had no unnecessary traces of trauma, each blow had been lethal and with intent to kill.

Unfortunately, that didn't help my search.

In this universe, there was a surplus of competent killers, and plenty of people to pay them.

But at least I knew I had to be prepared to fight someone above the common assassin.

"So kid any idea?" The commissioner of Star City, Mark Roman, said while looking at me with a tired sigh.

I shook my head, as I entered his office through the window he had opened, I was still surprised he was okay working with me, considering I was a kid in his eyes, I would've thought he would've been more against it, but no, he eagerly accepted my help, granted we had to communicate through notes, he didn't know sign language.

"This fucker is starting a lot of violence," Mark said, taking a seat, I could see his anger quite clearly, "The mobsters are shooting each other left and right, and normally I would be happy with that, but many innocents are getting caught in the crossfire." he sighed, rubbing his temples.

-Any updates on the new victim?- I wrote on my notepad.

"Yes," Mark nodded, pulling up a file from his desk, "This one was… tortured, unlike the rest." he added before giving me the file.

Torture? That was a change in his modus operandi, meaning, one it was a different killer, which was very unlikely at this point, or two, his latest victim was a message, but for whom?

Sighing, I opened the file and started reading. dismemberment, use of acid, flaying. The pictures were quite graphic, and the notes quite detailed, this last man had suffered, and not a quick death, not by all means.

-This is a message, he has yet to strike his main target- I wrote on my notepad, giving him back the file.

"What do you mean?" Mark asked after reading my note.

-So far, his murders have been clean, fast, efficient, but now… he has taken another path, my theory is, he's trying to make someone tremble in fear, who? That's the question I have.- I wrote.

"That sick bastard," Mark scowled.

-Is there any possible mob family that is not being attacked?- I asked, more than not, mobs tried to take each other out, so a mob being the patron of this assassin was my best bet so far.

Mark sighed as he shook his head, "Every family is being hit."

-How about the targets, is any family losing in comparison to the other families, less important members?- I asked.

"We haven't confirmed their possible ranks, so nothing there so far," Mark sighed.

If I couldn't follow that path, then I would follow the assassin's crumbs, he's jumping one family at a time, meaning the next one should be the Sordelis.

—--------------

I followed my gut instinct and when to patrol the Sordelis from a building in front of them, hiding from the shadows, so far four victims, from four different families that operated within the legal gray area, doing bad stuff, but not enough to warrant arrest, or a hero.

They were smart, keeping themselves out of the game just enough to not matter, but even then, someone wanted them out, or at least scared, a question I wanted to solve.

"We are getting purged like dogs I tell you!" One of the mobs I was spying out muttered.

Gotta thanks Batman for his gadgets.

"Bah, relax, if that bozo comes over here, imma show him how real man fight!" Another one replied.

"Will you now?" I heard someone chuckle.

Who was that guy? And how did he sneak inside their base without me even noticing? Unless he was already inside? Nonetheless, I don't recognize him at all.

Frowning, I pulled out my binoculars and tried to get a better view of the guy. He was of average height, fit physique, and was wearing white jeans and a red shirt, from where I was looking, unfortunately, his face was beyond my reach, but I could see he was night glasses.

"Who the fuck are you?!" They didn't know him? That's my cue to get close then.

Using my grappling hook, I swung to the building in front of me landing two feet beside a window to get a better look at the situation.

"I said who the fuck are you!?" the mobster asked again, pulling his gun out.

"No one," The man grinned, kicking the mob out of the way with a kick horizontal kick.

I wasn't sure he was my guy, but I had a strong feeling he was.

Sighing, I opened the window without making a sound and sneaked around the place putting some small traps as the unknown man kicked the hell out of the mobs, so far he was not using lethal force, so I had time to set the battlefield in my favor, but I had to do it fast, his amiable approach could change at any time.

"Now, how about you guys tell me where your boss is?" The man asked, grabbing one of the mobsters by the neck with ease, as three others joined to try and help their friend.

"Eat shit!" The mobster spat while choking admirable, and my cue to intervene.

"Bad answer," The man sighed.

However the unknown man had given me all the time I needed to position myself, during this conversation, I had closed the distance between us, flanking him, and before he could do anything more, I jumped on his shoulders before using them as a platform to land a kick on his chest, releasing the mobster.

*Leave,* I told the mobsters using my recorded voice lines.

"Don't have to ask twice," The man I had rescued nodded, running away with his friends, not without carrying his fallen.

"That was a stupid move kid," The unknown man chuckled, cracking his knuckles.

*Who are you?* I asked, using one of my recorded voice lines from my utility belt.

"Constantine Drakon, a pleasure to meet you," He bowed, as I frowned, this was the first time I heard of him, so far, as far as I knew, there was only one Constantine, and he wasn't an assassin, but a mage of the dark arts.

"That kick hurt," Constantine chuckled, rubbing his chest a bit, "But don't worry, I always pay my debts," he added, hurling a few very distinctive knives my way, as I ducked under their trajectory. 

Taking this opportunity I pushed toward him, hurling a few explosive knives with non-lethal charges with the intention to disorient him just enough for me to land a clean hit, knocking him out.

Constantine noticing this, rushed towards me, dodging the knives as he focused on me.

Deciding to break some distance between us, I pulled my grappling from my belt and aimed at the ceiling with the intention to get some high ground before he could reach me, then, as the grappling gun pulled me up, I hurled a few explosives under me halting his advance while covering in smoke, as I landed on the second floor.

"Not bad, but not enough," Constantine commented, hurling a few knives my way from the smoke.

I sidestepped, dodging the projectiles with ease as I focused on the shadows moving through the white smoke.

Then, I heard something.

Behind me.

Reacting in time, I spun around to find the assassin lunging towards me, knives drawn, so twirling under his attack, I grabbed his arm and threw a hard punch to his jaw, putting some weight into it.

Constantine staggered back, spitting some teeth and blood to the ground as I swung my leg in a horizontal kick his way, however, the assassin took no time to recover and dodge my kick, retaliating by slashing my chest with one of his knives. 

A hideous scraping noise invaded my ears immediately after, making me grateful for Batman's insistence on using kevlar-made suits, otherwise, I would've gotten a nasty cut.

Seeing his attack had done nothing, I threw a punch his way, but the assassin ducked kicking me into a wall shattering the wall into pieces under my weight with ease.

"Thick armor kid," Constantine chuckled.

I smiled, the man was good, but was painfully overconfident, after all, he had not checked his surroundings at all, nor found the traps I had set beforehand.

Grinning, the assassin took a step forward, activating one of my traps, an electric wire, that effectively caught him, pushing enough voltage on his body to knock a trained soldier down.

"You motherfucker," Constatine growled.

*That's my name, don't wear it out,* I blinked, that was not what I intended to say, I wanted to ask for him to surrender… Robin… I will kill you.

"You want to play dirty? Then so be it," Constantine snarled, taking out a pen from his pocket, then, clicking the pen, transforming it, into a long sword, then raising the sword high above his head, he swung it down at me as I rolled out of the way, hurling a few explosives and knives his way.

"I will put your head on display kid," Constantine declared, back to his confident self.

I sighed, pressing a button in my belt to activate trap two, the AI dart gun I had positioned within a box a few meters away from him.

However, this time, Constantine reacted in time, hearing the gunshot, and deflected the dart with great skill, sadly for him, I expected that to happen, after the first trap, the second one was destined to fail, which is why I had shot a dart at him the same time he had taken his eyes off me to deal with the other one.

"Kid, I was trained for this, that wo-" and he fell to the ground with a loud thud, he was probably about to say how he was trained to resist things like sleeping darts, but considering he had taken enough voltage to knock a trained soldier, I had upped the dart dosage a bit, quite a bit.

Well, Batman was right, planning ahead does make a difference.