Son of Deathstroke

Working with the Bat

Batman looked down at the waterfront lot from his vantage point on the warehouse roof. He peered through his binoculars at where the arms deal was set to take place. There was a huge delivery scheduled for that night, and he wasn't going to miss it.

"How many mosquitoes does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

He ignored the question, focusing on the task at hand.

"The real question is, how'd they get in there?" A fit of raucous laughter.

These juvenile jokes were really starting to grate on the Dark Knight's nerves. The only problem was, he didn't know where to draw the line.

"Really? No reaction? Okay, how about this: Why does Batman brush his teeth?"

Two sleek cars and a large truck pulled into the lot, signaling him to stand up and put the binoculars away.

"So he doesn't get bat breath!" The obnoxious apprentice was meandering around the rooftop, backflipping, walking on his hands, and doing any number of other random acrobatic acts. He purposefully fell over. "Are we moving now?"

"Yes. So get up and get ready."

"FINALLY!" Renegade stood up. "Let's go beat up some bad guys!"

Batman gave him the signature Batglare. "Make sure--"

Not particularly cowed by the dirty look, he finished, "Yeah, yeah, don't kill anybody, don't maim anybody too bad, watch out for high-tech guns. C'mon, let's go!" He leapt off the roof, followed quickly by his irritated mentor.

As they fought the gun dealers, Renegade rambled incessantly. "Ooh, look at this guy! His face is all, 'Die now, hero scum!' Oh, now it's just 'I'm unconscious.' Ha, this guy thinks he can shoot me. That's a laugh. Hey, I'm actually not too bad with escrima sticks. Though I'd be better with my katana. What say you, unconscious arms dealer? Yeah, didn't think so. Hey, Batsy! If I'm good enough, can I have my katana back?"

At first, Batman had no idea what to think of it. He would tell Renegade to stop, since he was distracting himself with it, but he wasn't distracting himself. If anything, Batman had come to realize over the course of the night, it almost seemed to help him, keep his mind flowing as quickly and fluidly as his body. In addition, it distracted their opponents. As annoying as it was, Batman would have to let the chatter slide.

As they finally beat the last dealer, Renegade picked up one of the guns. "Wow. Check out this beauty! She's HUGE! Not to mention shiny."

Batman inspected the large, futuristic-looking gun cradled in the ex-mercenary's arms. "This looks like alien tech," he analyzed.

"You could say that. Hey, I wonder what it does!" He took aim at the nearby warehouse.

"Renegade!" Batman snapped, narrowly stopping him from possibly blowing up the warehouse.

At the sound of his name, he lowered the gun and frowned slightly. "As fitting as that name is now, it's kinda... meh. I don't like it. How about... I dunno... Bat-lad? Ew, no. Never mind. I'll think of one eventually." He ceded possession of the gun to the Dark Knight. "So what do we do with all these illegal weapons? Keep 'em?"

"We give them to the GCPD and STAR labs for analysis."

"You don't even keep one for your cool toy collection?" He got the twenty-third Batglare for that night. With the frequency of which he was receiving them, he barely even noticed.

"No, I don't. Go back to the Batmobile. I'll call Gordon and get him to send men for these guns. The question is, what were these men doing with this kind of advanced, possibly alien, tech?"