Growing Pains

I wasn’t too surprised to find out Batman wasn’t going to be able to train me whenever I wanted. Unlike me, he had other things to do which meant he had to set aside time for preparation, investigation, maintaining his cover identity, and then his own training.

That meant I was free to do almost whatever I wanted when he was busy.

Batman did give me a few rules I was going to have to follow if I wanted to keep getting his training. Most of them were obvious ones like ‘no blowing up a city’ or ‘no killing people’. Things that I wasn’t really interested in doing anyway so it was fine. It used to be I had to follow the law, but I started looking up all the random, nonsensical laws I could find and presenting them to him asking if I had to follow those too until he removed that one from the list and told me he would revise it when he had time.

Which meant there was a window of time where I could do almost whatever I wanted and had a ready excuse so he couldn’t get mad.

I was going to use that time to rob a bank.

It bothered me that my first bank robbery got interrupted, okay?! It was a classic crime, a hallmark of any successful supervillain. I wasn’t going to let it remain a black mark on my career just because some stupid humans had to ruin it for me!

Of course I couldn’t just act like the first time hadn’t happened at all so I wasn’t going to focus on the location as much. I wasn’t even entirely sure what city I was in at the moment. Just that it was somewhere in the south east. As long as I stayed out of Florida I should get some decent news coverage and help cement my reputation. I might even be able to find a few more minor heroes too. Someone I could spar against that fell somewhere between Superjerk and Batman so I could get a fight I was capable of winning but took more effort than just raising my Ki.

And this time I wouldn’t be nearly as nervous – not that I was nervous the first time! – because I now had some experience. I could do this, and it would go perfectly…

-o-

I couldn’t stop smiling if I tried as I walked out of the bank.

Everything had gone perfectly to plan!

Not only was I able to break into the vault and steal a bunch of money, the teller had also managed to set off the silent alarm so I would be able to fight the police on the way out! Naturally they wouldn't be able to stop me and I would finally get the recognition as a villain I deserved.

My grin widened when I saw a bunch of police cars right outside and I was fully ready to launch into the mandatory monologue when I noticed something was off. None of the cops were actually looking at me.

Instead they were looking at – oh come on! That wasn’t fair!

Barely two blocks from the bank there was a bird-winged woman with a mace fighting some kind of giant lizard with a laser gun. And they were kinda trashing the place which meant they were getting my attention instead of me.

Shoot, the woman looked familiar too. She was Hawkgirl, or was it Hawkwoman? Were they the same people? And wasn’t she secretly evil for a bit? Ah, whatever. Right now she should be a hero. Which meant I might be able to fight her to make up for the fact my carefully planned robbery was ruined – again!

But first I needed to get rid of the other alien she was fighting.

I flew up into the air and pointed a palm at the reptilian alien, a ball of Ki gathering there. Then I thought about it and how the alien was tanking the mace hits and poured even more Ki into the attack.

The blast caught the alien completely by surprise and sent him crashing into an abandoned car…and the one behind it……and the three behind those.

I may have gone a tiny bit overboard.

It was fine though! I could still see him breathing so he was alive, just…very thoroughly knocked out.

My attack also had the bonus effect of making the police remember why they were in front of a bank in the first place but none of them were brave enough to actually face me, they just readjusted where they were hiding so they had something between me and them.

Hawkgirl-woman didn’t seem to pick up on that immediately though.

“Thanks for the help, but I had it handled.” The winged woman said as she landed nearby. “Lieutenant Shayera Thal of Thanagar.”

I shrugged. “I was just upset you guys were getting in the way of my special event. I had everything going the way I wanted and you were distracting everyone else.” I waved at the gathered cops. “Oh, and I’m Califa! Nice to meet you.”

“Event? What kind of…” Hawkgirl-woman finally saw the police hiding from me and the building we were standing in front of as well as the bag full of money at my feet.

“...You weren’t robbing this bank, were you?” She asked, glaring at me, well, hawkishly.

“And if I was?”

“Then, as a reward for helping detain another criminal, I would let you go as long as you left everything you took behind.”

Her mace lit up in some weird sphere of lightning and she had a very aggressive looking grin on her face. One that I was certainly matching at this point.

“Yeah? You know what I say to that? Make me.”

Alright, hero fight. Ready…set…

“Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance – ragghhh!”

Go!

The winged heroine launched herself at me with a loud battle cry. Swinging her mace at my torso.

I kicked the bag full of money away so it wouldn’t get damaged and brought up both arms to block. To my surprise even when I flared my Ki to reduce the impact, the mace still really hurt when it hit. I could actually feel my bones creak a little from the impact. Hawkie certainly wasn’t holding back!

I was going to have to watch out for that.

This was not the time to be distracted though, and I had to duck under another swing to avoid getting whacked again. Hawkie overshot and I was able to land a solid punch to her ribs that had her flapping her wings hard to avoid crashing into the ground. I waited patiently for her to stabilize and turn around so that when I shot a Ki beam at her, it was heading directly for her face.

She surprised me again by actually smashing my beam backwards with her magic mace and I had to move fast to avoid getting hit with my own energy. Of course by the time I had done that Hawkie was right in front of me again. I tried flying backwards to get out of the way but she was faster. That didn’t mean I was going to let her get a free hit though. Since I couldn’t dodge, I leaned into her swing and used the impact to increase the momentum for a solid kick to her face. Unfortunately between my own shorter legs not managing to fully connect and her bird shaped helmet the attack didn’t seem to do much.

This time it was my turn to attack and I rushed forward to take advantage of the fact that Hawkie’s flight was reliant on actual wings. Two simultaneous Ki beams forced her to pull them closer since there was no way she could hit them both with her mace and left her wide open for a mid-air tackle.

I felt the air whoosh out of her lungs as I tried to push us both towards the ground, but she wasn’t making this easy for me. Even with the surprise grapple, Hawkie managed to bring her knee up hard and fast into my chest so that it loosened my grip on her. Which turned out to be enough that she was able to slip out of the hold entirely and use me as a springboard to keep flying while I was sent crashing into the pavement below.

At the sound of another battle cry I looked up just in time to throw myself to the side as Hawkie’s mace cratered into the ground where I just was. I flared my Ki to kill my momentum and fly straight back at her to deliver another punch to the face. This time it was a clean hit that sent Hawkie stumbling away, dazed but not out of the fight.

I waited just long enough for the retaliatory swipe with the mace when she tried to guess my next attack’s timing to miss before launching myself at her again, only to realize too late that she had predicted me predicting her and flew straight into a roundhouse kick.

“You’re pretty good!” I complimented as I floated back off the pavement.

“And you’re a pain in the ass.” Hawkie growled back.

“Aww, that’s not nice. Aren’t you having fun?”

I don’t think she wanted to admit she was enjoying this fight just as much as I was because she just leaped at me with another battlecry. She was somehow faster than I expected and caught me with a surprise uppercut before grabbing me by the front of my armor and spiking me into the ground.

I wheezed a bit at the force of the impact.

Once again Hawkie readied her mace to smash me further into the ground but she was too slow. A bright yellow Ki blast caught her right in the stomach and sent her smashing through a stone building’s wall.

Oops.

Still, that wasn’t enough to keep Hawkie down, even if she was looking a little rough at this point. She pulled herself out of the rubble and glared down at me looking fully prepared to keep the fight going. Something I was all for, but I was getting to the point that one of us would have to go down soon.

Even if Hawkie was looking pretty banged up, I wasn’t all that fresh either if I was being honest.

I wasn’t about to run away though. This was the first no holds fight I had gotten in that wasn’t against someone that outclassed me hilariously. I was going to keep enjoying this as long as I could.

Hawkie probably didn’t feel the same way. I got the feeling she was looking for a way to take me out as quickly as possible going by how careful she was being right now.

“What’s the matter, did you want to give up?” I taunted her with a wide smile.

“Don’t flatter yourself, kid. I’m just getting started.” She snarled, flying into the air and dive bombing me, mace cocked back.

Since I knew she was skilled enough that I wasn’t going to just avoid her I did something she wasn’t expecting and jumped closer at the last second. Using the training I did with Batman I managed to stop her next swing before she really got it going. But just because I caught her by surprise, that didn’t mean she wasn’t quick enough to respond. Even as I caught her right arm her left was moving into position to block the attack she was sure was coming.

Too bad for her that wasn’t what I was after.

Batman had spent a lot of time teaching me how to use leverage instead of strength to disarm someone. I used that training now to twist Hawkie’s arm around until she was forced to drop it and then I kicked her away.

This time when we separated, I was the one left holding the fancy metal mace and she was unarmed.

“Give that back!”

I waved the weapon tauntingly at her. “No way, it’s my turn to play with it.”

“Grrrrrrr.”

“Alright. Ready for round two?”

Hawkie took a stance while glaring at me. Even without her weapon she was going to keep fighting. Great! It would have been boring otherwise.

“Okay, let’s keep going!”