Growing Pains

The second the match started I couldn't stop myself from bounding forward, eager to test out the new things I had just learned.

I saw the hero and his annoying sidekick open their mouths to try talking – probably trying to convince me to stop the fight – but I had been trying to get Batman to take me seriously in training for forever! Yet, everytime I brought up more intensive training or sparring he deflected by saying I needed more practice with the basics before that.

And while he wasn't wrong, I figured he was more interested in keeping an eye on me than giving me new skills. But now he couldn't stop me! And I got to beat up Bird Brain at the same time!

But first…

"Batman!" Bird Brain cried out when I jump kicked at his mentor's head, missing by a slim margin. That didn't stop me though and I instantly dashed back at him the second my foot hit the floor.

Batman kept trying to avoid me and create distance, but I wasn't going to let that happen!

"And we're off to an acrobatic opening!" I distantly heard the announcer shout. "Califa isn't giving Batman room to breathe in a stunning display of martial arts, but he is countering her move for move! But since the Dark Knight isn't a broken mess it looks like our little alien menace has decided she wants to play with her food!"

I mean, he wasn't wrong…

If I wanted to just win then I would be blasting them from the air with Ki attacks. But where's the fun in that?

The first hint that I might have dismissed Robin a bit too much was three little pellets landing in between me and Batman just after I failed to get him into a joint lock. Then they exploded and I was choking on the thick smoke they spewed out while Batman slipped away.

"H-hey! Stay out of this Bird Brain!" I coughed. "I'm fighting Batman first!"

"Why are you fighting us at all, you stupid monkey?!" The brat yelled back.

"We're in a fighting ring, what else would we do here?!"

"An illegal fight ring." Batman spoke up. "And we didn't choose to be here."

"So wait, that bit with the manacles wasn't just so you could pretend you weren't here on purpose?" I asked. "Did you really get caught by these guys? How?"

Robin blushed bright red and averted his gaze. Naturally that meant I had a laser focus on him.

"You messed up didn't you." I stated.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ha! You did~, hahaha" I was forced to hover midair from how hard I was laughing–

*BANG!*

–only to stop when a bullet impacted the ground by my feet.

"A quick reminder that this is a Deathmatch." The announcer said threateningly. "No stopping halfway through for a chat."

I stopped smiling.

This random person was telling me how to fight? When he hadn't even shown himself at all? I must have grown a sense of pride when I wasn't looking because the thought of someone I could almost guarantee was weaker than me in every way that mattered ordering me around rubbed me in all kinds of wrong ways.

I silently pointed a hand at the turret that had shot at me and vaporized it with a bright yellow Ki blast.

"Don't tell me what to do." I said darkly.

Then I turned back to Batman and Robin, who were both looking much more on edge than before. Well, at least it looked like they were going to take this seriously now.

"He's not entirely wrong though. We can talk later… for now I'm going to have fun with this!"

This time I charged Robin with a sharp grin on my face.

To the kid's credit, he didn't freeze up or anything like that. Instead he somersaulted over my head by using my shoulder as a springboard and tried kicking at my back. Too bad it was a move he used against me a lot in our occasional spar so I was ready to turn and catch his foot on my forearm before punching him in the jaw.

I wasn't ready for Batman to take advantage of the opening to punt me like a football, though!

"So that's the way you – eep!"

Batman didn't settle for just a single kick. I looked up just in time for a batarang to fly by, narrowly missing hitting me in the face followed by several more that I had to throw myself to the side to avoid and incidentally interrupting my attempts at mid fight banter.

I ignored the tiny boomerang things hitting the arena wall and exploding and focused on my two opponents. I saw Robin nod at something Batman said and both of them splitting up so we all formed a rough triangle.

Then I was stuck dodging as the two started throwing all kinds of things at me.

Explosive discs, smoke bombs, taser things, and a few more. I wasn't going to touch them after I tried catching a taser batarang with the intent on throwing it back, only for it to go off immediately.

My hand was still tingly.

"A-and we're back in the ac-action folks! Our crime-fighting duo is keeping Califa at bay with an impressive amount of projectiles. But try as they might, the tiny alien terror is simply too slippery to get hit! But that might not be enough to take her out, she hasn't gotten serious yet!"

I ignored the announcer again since it was clear he had no idea what Batman had planned.

All of Robin's throws were aimed to distract or disorient me. They made noise, kicked up dirt and sand, and made smoke, sure. But the biggest thing they did was conceal where Batman's throws were coming from. Those were always thrown so I would have to dodge out of the way and were thrown hard enough that they usually didn't stop until they hit the arena walls.

I was cheating with Ki sense, something I was pretty sure Batman didn't know about, to keep an eye on where the two were – and it was needed after a few seconds when nearly the entire arena was covered in smoke – but his projectiles didn't have Ki in them. I needed to use my other senses to avoid those.

It was difficult, stressful, and incredibly frustrating trying to keep an eye on two people with one sense and as many as seven small flying objects with the rest.

And I was having a blast with it!

Here I was, an alien from space with powers far beyond a normal human and in a wide open room, and Batman had still managed to change the environment around to suit him and give me a hard time! Sure I wasn't using most of those powers, but I had already determined this was going to be a test of skill not strength.

Speaking of Batman, he must have run out of things to throw at me because I could sense him getting closer.

I turned to face him right as he burst through the smoke and went low, trying to kick his legs out from under him. He jumped over it in a move so smooth I would have sworn it was practiced if I didn't know better. My own dodge when he punched straight down was jerky and uncoordinated in comparison.

You would think punching the ground as hard as you could would make a human pause for a bit, but Batman was shifting into a different stance the second he made contact. I dodged, weaved, and counterattacked as best I could while forcing myself to react at human limits. Why couldn't this be how we normally trained?!

"Because you still need to brush up on the basics." Batman said, making me realize I said that last bit out loud.

Then he took advantage of me overcommitting to a punch to throw me over his shoulder and into the floor. Hard.

I wheezed a bit as the air was forcefully driven from my lungs and rolled when Batman went to smash my diaphragm. Only to fall into a trap when it turned out to be a feint and he caught me by the wrist and put me in an armbar.

"You know I could break out of this right?" I grunted as I allowed my arm to be forced into a rather uncomfortable position.

"You'll lose your game if you do." He replied.

I tsk'd. Figures he would have realized what I was doing by now.

"So what now? I might not be able to win right now but you'll probably get tired before I do, and I don't think our friends are going to be happy if one of us just gives up, ya'know?"

Batman sighed in defeat. "What do you want?"

"More sparring matches like this one! And you aren't allowed to hold back anymore!"

"I haven't been holding back. You really do need that much practice with the basics before I could teach you more."

"Yeah, but you could at least mix things up now and again."

Batman didn't sigh again, but I had a feeling he wanted to.

"Deal."

"Cool!" I chirped with a wide smile. And with that I was released. "So what now?"

-o-

By now the entirety of the arena was just a mass of smoke. The organizers definitely hadn't thought about someone using so many smoke bombs that it could cover the entire floor so there were no countermeasures for it. Something the crowd was starting to get annoyed by.

They had come to see a fight. Not just stare at some smoke for several minutes!

Before too many of them could start making a fuss, a massive yellow beam tore through the smoke and a nearby wall.

Then, even more of it started getting pushed away as I flared my Ki higher and higher.

"And it looks like this might be the beginning of the end, Ladies and Gentlemen! Califa has apparently decided to stop playing around and has cleared the smokescreen with one attack!

But what's this? Our Boy Wonder doesn't seem to be in the ring anymore! It looks like the Dynamic Duo is down a member! Was he caught up in that last blast?!"

The grumbles were replaced with cheers as the crowd's bloodlust peaked.

I rose a bit further into the air and attempted to speak, but couldn't get anything out over the noise.

That was…pretty impressive actually.

I just hovered in place, arms crossed, tapping a finger while I waited for the noise to die down.

Once it finally did, I raised my hand and pointed down at Batman dramatically. "Everyone, listen up!" That killed the last of the noise. "I have just one thing to say before I end this!"

"As the future conqueror of Earth, I judge Batman as a worthy champion I must defeat! A Champion of Skill! But…!"

The crowd seemed to lean in, waiting for what I was going to say next.

"...I can't do that yet. So I give up!"

There was a beat of silence, and then the crowd erupted in rage at being denied their entertainment. Too bad for them I didn't really care.

"Well, that was certainly a surprise. In a shocking turn of events Califa has forfeited the match! But don't worry folks, we promised you a deathmatch so that's what you're going to get! Unleash the turrets!"

At the announcer's command there were a bunch of mechanical groans as the turrets he mentioned tried to deploy. But it turned out Batman had already beaten him there. While I had assumed he had been using the earlier smokescreen to attack me by surprise, it had really been so that he could disable the turrets around the arena without anyone noticing.

Of course there were a handful that he missed, but it was easy enough for me to blast them with a Ki attack before they could really get going.

"Ah, ahem, nothing to worry about, folks. We have contingencies for just such an occas– *BAM!* – w-wait! What are you doing in here!?"

There were a few sounds of a struggle over the system before Robin's smug voice rang out.

"And that's one hack of an announcer taken care of! With that taken care of, it's a total victory for the heroes! I hope you all enjoyed the show, ladies and gentlemen. Please feel free to give us a review while we wait for the police to help you on your way out. Thank you and have a nice day."

By then even the dumbest in the crowd had realized the fight club had lost control of the situation and started running for the exit, but it was no use as several security gates slammed closed at the exits.

Not the best ending to my first fight arena, but I still had fun. I'd have to check back with the recruiter guy to see if they had a branch that wasn't dumb enough to kidnap Batman and see if they were looking for new fighters later.

-o-

"So how'd you get caught anyway?" I asked as Batman and Robin waited for the last of the fight ring organizers to get carted away.

"We were investigating a few disappearances and stumbled across a recruiting center." Batman said simply, opting to just leave it there.

"And I tried to stop the recruiter from escaping out the back."Robin rubbed the back of his head and sheepishly added. "There was a gas trap we didn't see."

I just stared at him.

That was it?

"Wow, that's so lame."

"Yeah, well what about you? Did you just follow the first stranger offering you a fight, you muscle-brained monkey?" Robin snapped. Then when I didn't reply, he smirked. "You totally did, didn't you!"

"Shut up, Bird Brain! I was looking for someone else to train me while Batman was busy!"

"That doesn't make it any better." he laughed.

I wasn't about to take that lying down and tackled him to the ground where we both tried to wrestle the other into submission.

I was so focused on delivering sweet justice to the bird brained idiot that I didn't notice Batman shake his head and walk off with a small smile on his face.