Chapter 9.5
-General POV-
Black Canary had knocked Conner Kent onto his back four times in the space of three minutes, and judging by the expression on her face, she was beginning to consider the possibility that she might have to do it a fifth before the lesson finally sank in. The training room at Mount Justice was spacious enough to accommodate the Team's usual exercises, with reinforced flooring, retractable equipment racks, and observation panels overlooking the cavernous interior of the mountain. Wally had claimed one of the benches along the wall, Artemis stood beside him with her arms folded, and M'gann hovered a few inches above the floor while she watched their instructor work.
Conner, meanwhile, had barely finished pushing himself upright when Dinah stepped towards him again, her blonde hair tied back and her black training clothes showing no sign of the exertion that had already left her opponent breathing harder than he would have liked. She did not possess his strength, his durability, or anything approaching his raw physical power, yet she moved with a precision that made each of those advantages considerably less useful than he expected them to be. Every time Conner attempted to force the exchange in his favour, Dinah found an opening, redirected his momentum, and sent him sprawling before he could recover his balance, leaving the rest of the Team to watch with varying degrees of sympathy and amusement.
"Again, Conner." Dinah instructed, extending one hand towards him as she settled back into her stance. "And before you come at me, I want you to tell me what happened the last time you tried that same combination, because if you give me the exact same opening again, I'm going to take it again. You know I'm quicker on the turn, you know I'm watching your hips rather than your shoulders, and you know that once you've committed your weight to a strike, you cannot simply decide halfway through that you'd prefer to be somewhere else. You have the strength to put me through the wall if you land a clean hit, but you keep treating that as though it gives you permission to ignore everything that happens before the hit lands. A real opponent isn't going to stand still and admire how hard you can punch, and if you expect me to let you connect simply because you managed to get your fist moving in my direction, you're going to spend the rest of this session looking at the ceiling."
Conner rolled his shoulders, visibly displeased with the lecture, but he raised his guard and took up his position opposite her all the same. Dinah gave him a small nod, acknowledging the adjustment, then motioned for him to begin when he was ready.
Conner advanced more cautiously this time, circling to his left instead of charging straight at her, and Dinah allowed him to close the distance without immediately punishing the movement. He feinted with his lead hand, watched for her reaction, and then drove forward with a right cross that would have broken an ordinary fighter's guard even if it had been anticipated. Dinah slipped outside the punch, caught his forearm with one hand, and used the momentum of his forward movement to turn him away from her, but Conner adjusted quickly enough to avoid being thrown outright. For a brief moment, he seemed to have recognised the trap and found a way to remain upright, and Wally leaned forward on the bench as though the improvement might finally result in a different outcome.
Then Dinah shifted her weight, hooked her foot behind Conner's ankle, and pushed against his shoulder at precisely the moment he attempted to plant his other foot. His balance vanished, and he struck the mat on his back with a heavy thud that carried across the training room.
"Better," Dinah told him, offering her hand once more, "but you still gave me your centre as soon as you tried to recover. You cannot correct one mistake by making another, and you certainly cannot assume that an opponent will stop moving just because you have managed to recognise what they did."
"At this point, I'm starting to think she just enjoys throwing you around." Wally remarked from the sidelines, leaning towards Artemis with an expression of sympathetic concern that did nothing to disguise his amusement. "I mean, I'm all for learning from our mistakes, but there has to be a point where the lesson becomes less about technique and more about seeing how many times a Kryptonian can bounce before he starts complaining. If I were Conner, I'd be asking whether we could try a different exercise, preferably one where the instructor doesn't spend the entire session using me as an example of what happens when somebody gets cocky."
Artemis glanced at him with the weary look of someone who had heard variations of the same joke from him throughout every training session they had ever attended. "You say that now, but you were the one who insisted that Dinah couldn't possibly keep up with you in a hand-to-hand exercise because you were too fast for her to catch. You even hit on her, Then she tripped you without even needing to use her Canary Cry, and you spent the next ten minutes claiming the floor had been uneven."
Wally opened his mouth to object, apparently ready with an elaborate defence, but Dinah's voice carried across the room before he could begin, prompting him to sit up and pretend that he had been paying close attention to the lesson all along.
The disturbance came without warning, although to anyone familiar with Bardock's arrival it might have seemed almost inevitable that he would choose the least ceremonious method available. A brief distortion passed through the air near the entrance, and the Saiyan appeared several metres from the training area, his red staff secured at his waist and his tail moving in a slow arc behind him. He wore the same practical combination of gi trousers, combat boots, and short open vest he had been seen wearing aboard the Watchtower, his thick black hair standing in unruly clusters above his head, and he looked around the room with the quiet interest of someone arriving at an unfamiliar dojo rather than a concealed mountain facility occupied by young superheroes.
The conversation died almost immediately, and the Team's attention shifted towards him with an instinctive alertness that was becoming familiar to anyone who had watched them interact with the newcomer. M'gann's hovering ceased, Artemis straightened, and Robin's hand moved a little closer to the equipment belt at his waist before he consciously relaxed it. Conner, still seated on the mat after his latest defeat, looked openly displeased, his jaw tightening as Bardock's gaze passed over him without any apparent interest in the fact that he had just been knocked down for the fifth time.
Dinah remained where she was, although her stance shifted just enough to acknowledge that an unfamiliar variable had entered the room. "Bardock," she said, looking him over before glancing briefly towards the others, "I wasn't expecting a visitor today, and I don't remember anyone telling me that we had arranged a demonstration. Is there a particular reason you've decided to appear in the middle of my session, or have you simply become accustomed to entering rooms without using the doors?"
Bardock regarded her with mild amusement, apparently untroubled by the suspicion in the room, and inclined his head in greeting. "Diana recommended that I come here and watch you train the Team. She thought there might be something worth learning from your methods, and that I might be able to offer them something useful in return, provided I didn't spend the entire afternoon telling everyone how much better my own training had been. I was under the impression that this was an ordinary session, so if I've interrupted something important, I can wait until you're finished." He glanced towards Conner, whose expression suggested that he would have preferred Bardock to wait somewhere considerably farther away, then returned his attention to Dinah. "Although, from what I've seen since arriving, I suspect the lesson is already well underway."
Dinah's expression shifted into something closer to professional curiosity, and she relaxed her guard enough to approach him without appearing to surrender control of the room. "Diana did mention that you had considerable experience with martial arts, though she was rather less specific about what that experience involved," she said. "I understand that you've spent a good deal of your life fighting, but combat experience and the ability to teach someone else are two different things, and I would rather establish what you can do before deciding whether I should have the Team listen to your advice. If you're willing, perhaps we could have a round together. Nothing excessive, just enough for me to see how you move and for you to get a feel for the kind of work I'm doing with them."
Bardock looked at her for a moment, his expression brightening with the interest of someone who had been hoping the visit might lead to something more engaging than standing against a wall and watching other people practise. "I'd be happy to," he answered. "I've been told that you're one of the League's better instructors, and I would rather judge your technique for myself than take somebody else's word for it. We can keep it controlled, of course. I'm not here to injure you, and I don't see any reason for either of us to turn a training session into a contest of endurance."
Conner rose from the mat as Dinah turned towards him and gestured for him to step back. He obeyed, though he did so with obvious reluctance, joining the others near the edge of the training area while Dinah took her position opposite Bardock. The Saiyan made no attempt to stretch, loosen his shoulders, or settle into any recognisable fighting stance, instead standing with his arms hanging comfortably at his sides and his posture so relaxed that he might have been waiting for someone to finish speaking.
Dinah watched him carefully, noting the absence of a guard and the fact that his weight appeared evenly distributed without any obvious preparation to move. She had trained enough people to recognise that a relaxed stance could conceal a great deal of skill, but she had also dealt with more than her share of powerful fighters who mistook confidence for an excuse to ignore the basics.
"You understand that this is a sparring match, not a test of how much damage you can take." she remarked, raising her hands into a balanced guard. "I'm not going to stand here waiting for you to decide that I look threatening enough to deserve your attention, and if you continue standing there as though you haven't noticed that we're about to fight, I'm going to assume you're either trying to make a point or you're being deliberately arrogant."
Bardock looked down briefly at his own hands, as though checking whether he had somehow forgotten to raise them, then returned his gaze to Dinah with a faint smile. "Neither, particularly," he replied. "I simply haven't seen a reason to defend myself yet, and I'd rather not make unnecessary movements just to reassure you that I'm taking this seriously. If you give me a reason to guard, I'll guard, and if you give me a reason to move, I'll move. Until then, I don't see why I should pretend that I'm in danger when I'm not."
A small murmur passed among the Team, with a quiet Kaldur shaking his head and Conner's expression darkened at the casual implication that Dinah would have to earn his attention before Bardock considered her a threat. Dinah, however, did not allow herself to be distracted by the provocation, and her mouth curved into a professional smile that suggested she had already decided how she intended to answer it.
"All right," she said, shifting her lead foot slightly. "Let's see whether you still feel that way once we begin." She stepped forward, her shoulders turning as she launched a quick hook towards his jaw, the strike deliberately short of full commitment and designed to draw a reaction rather than land cleanly. Before Bardock could respond, she changed levels and swept her leg towards his ankles, aiming to take his base away while his attention remained on the upper-body attack.
The hook passed close enough to Bardock's face to disturb a few strands of his hair, while the sweep connected squarely with his leg. Dinah felt the impact travel up her shin with the unpleasant shock of striking a steel post concealed beneath a layer of skin, and the recoil forced her to withdraw her foot before she could complete the movement. Bardock had not shifted more than a fraction of an inch, and his expression remained almost apologetic as he looked down at the point where her kick had landed.
"You don't have to treat me like one of the Team," he said, his voice carrying clearly across the room. "I know you're testing my reactions, and I understand why you began with something simple, but I came here to see what you can actually do. If you intend to spend the entire session making sure that you don't hurt me, we're going to learn very little about one another."
Dinah lowered her leg, flexing her foot once as she assessed the feedback from the kick, then looked back at him with a more serious expression. "I was making an assessment," she answered. "I generally prefer to know what I'm dealing with before I start committing to techniques that could put someone through the floor. But I take your point, and I'll stop assuming that I need to hold back merely because you're standing there looking as though you're waiting for a bus."
The change in Dinah's approach was immediate, and the Team's attention sharpened as she began to move with the fluid intensity that had made her one of the League's most respected hand-to-hand instructors. She entered with a straight punch towards Bardock's face, withdrew before he could catch her wrist, then pivoted into a short elbow strike aimed at his ribs, using the rotation of her hips to carry her from one movement into the next. When he turned his body to avoid the elbow, she seized the opening and tried to trap his arm against her shoulder, drawing him into an Aikido-inspired turn that would have sent a less balanced opponent tumbling across the mat.
Bardock moved with her rather than against her, allowing the pressure to pass through his shoulder before turning his wrist and slipping out of the hold without forcing her to release it. Dinah followed with a sharp knee strike, a low kick, and a sequence of punches designed to make him defend multiple lines at once, changing her rhythm whenever she sensed that he had begun to anticipate the pattern. The movements flowed between systems with an ease that made it clear she was not performing a collection of memorised techniques but drawing upon a broad understanding of how different methods could be combined when the circumstances demanded it.
Her next combination brought in the close-range brutality of Krav Maga, using short strikes and sudden changes of angle to attack the spaces between Bardock's guard, before she transitioned into Muay Thai, driving a knee towards his midsection and attempting to establish control through the clinch. When he turned away from the knee, she followed with a sharp elbow and a rapid sequence of punches that drew upon her boxing, then shifted her stance and attacked his balance with a series of kicks drawn from Taekwondo.
Each change was deliberate, designed to prevent an opponent from settling into a single defensive rhythm, and the transitions were so seamless that even the Team members who had trained under her for years watched with renewed appreciation. Bardock, however, seemed to recognise the direction of each attack before she had fully committed to it, his hands moving in small, economical motions that caught her wrists, redirected her forearms, or closed the line of attack with just enough force to prevent contact. He did not retaliate, and he did not attempt to overpower her, instead meeting each strike with a parry, a turn of the shoulder, or a shift of his feet that left her attacks passing harmlessly through the space he had occupied a moment earlier.
The longer the exchange continued, the more apparent the difference between them became. Dinah was an exceptional human combatant, and her ability to transition between disciplines gave her a level of versatility that would have challenged many opponents whose physical gifts exceeded her own, but Bardock's defensive movements possessed a smoothness that seemed to remove the effort from every exchange. He never reached too far to catch a strike, never crossed his feet in pursuit of an angle, and never committed himself so heavily to one defence that he left an opening for the next attack. When Dinah attempted to draw him into a rhythm, he changed the timing without appearing to notice that he had done so, allowing her to build a combination only to interrupt it with a light touch against her forearm or a subtle shift of his stance.
He was not moving at the sort of speed that would have made the exercise meaningless, nor was he relying on his ability to absorb attacks that would have broken an ordinary person's bones; he was meeting her on a level that made the contest recognisable as a martial arts exchange, and even there, his experience was unmistakable. Dinah found herself working harder with every passing moment, not because he was forcing her to endure a punishing pace, but because each technique she tried seemed to reveal another layer of understanding she had not anticipated.
She finally broke away from the exchange with a quick backward step, raising one hand to signal a pause while she caught her breath and reassessed the situation. Bardock remained in front of her with the same relaxed posture he had adopted at the beginning, his breathing steady and his expression attentive rather than smug.
"Your defence is extraordinary. It's solid like a wall." Dinah admitted, looking at him with the frank respect of an instructor who had just encountered a level of technical mastery that demanded recognition. "I've sparred with people who could react faster than I can, and I've trained against opponents whose physical advantages made it impossible to stop every attack, but you aren't simply reacting to what I do. You're reading the movements before they develop, and you're making adjustments that prevent me from getting the leverage I need to carry a technique through. You haven't tried to overpower me once, and you haven't even taken the initiative to attack, yet I've spent most of this exchange trying to make you move in a direction you haven't already chosen. Where did you learn to fight like that?"
Bardock gave a small shrug, as though the answer were too ordinary to justify the level of attention she was giving it. "I've had several masters over the years, and every one of them was exceptional in a different way. Some taught me how to use my body efficiently, others taught me how to read an opponent, and a few were so far beyond my own ability that the only way to make progress was to accept that I didn't understand what I was looking at until they'd shown me repeatedly."
Dinah nodded, absorbing the answer while the Team listened from the sidelines. "Having good teachers makes a difference, certainly, but there are plenty of people who have trained under exceptional masters without developing that kind of control," she observed. "You have an unusually clear understanding of distance and timing, and you seem to recognise the intention behind a movement almost as soon as the person begins to commit to it. That doesn't come from simply learning a technique and repeating it until you can perform it correctly; it comes from years of testing what you've learned against people who know how to punish mistakes. How long have you been training?"
Bardock's expression softened slightly, and for the first time since the match began, his attention seemed to drift towards a memory rather than the person standing in front of him. "Since I could walk, more or less. Fighting was part of the world I grew up in, and even when I was young enough that I couldn't understand everything my teachers were trying to show me, I was expected to learn how to move, how to protect myself, and how to recognise the difference between an opponent who was testing me and one who intended to kill me. I've had decades to practise since then, across circumstances that would be difficult to explain without making the conversation considerably longer than either of us wants it to be. I've learned from gods, martial artists, warriors, and people whose abilities were so unusual that conventional training methods were of little use. Some of them taught me techniques I still rely upon, while others forced me to discard habits that I had mistaken for good practice."
The answer produced a brief silence, broken only when Wally leaned towards Artemis and murmured that he had just discovered the reason Bardock made everyone else look as though they were still learning to tie their shoes. Artemis elbowed him lightly, though she did not look away from the sparring area, where Dinah had begun to circle Bardock once more with a different expression on her face. She was no longer trying to determine whether he could fight; that question had been answered thoroughly enough that further testing would serve little purpose. Instead, she appeared interested in seeing what his own offensive technique looked like, particularly because he had spent the entire exchange avoiding the opportunity to demonstrate it.
"All right," she said, settling back into her stance. "You've shown me what you can do defensively, and I think it's fair to say that you don't need any help learning how to avoid being hit. Now I'd like you to show me how you attack. Don't turn it into a lesson in how much stronger you are than me, because I already understand that you're operating under limitations I can't hope to match physically. I want to see your technique, the way you create openings, and how you deal with an opponent who is actively trying to prevent you from getting into position."
Bardock nodded and raised his hands for the first time, though his guard remained loose enough that Dinah could see the ease with which he moved his shoulders and wrists. "That's reasonable," he replied. "I'll keep the strength under control, and I'll avoid anything that would cause lasting damage, but I won't deliberately make my movements less effective just to give you a better chance of stopping them. If we're going to learn anything from this, you need to see how the techniques work when they're being used properly, rather than watching me perform a harmless imitation of what I would do against someone who was trying to kill me."
Dinah gave a short nod, then raised her own guard, her weight balanced and her attention fixed on his centre. She had faced opponents whose abilities made it necessary to approach a sparring match with caution, but Bardock's willingness to demonstrate his offensive skill without relying on overwhelming force offered a rare opportunity to study a fighting style that had been developed across an extraordinary span of experience. She intended to take advantage of it, even if she suspected that the lesson might prove rather more humbling than she would have chosen.
Bardock moved first, but his opening was so restrained that Dinah initially mistook it for a feint. He stepped into range with a short jab aimed towards her guard, then withdrew the moment she moved to intercept it, using the reaction to slip a second strike past the outside of her wrist. The punch stopped just short of her cheek, close enough for her to feel the displacement of air, and before she could counter, he had shifted his stance and placed a light pressure-point strike against the muscle above her elbow. Her arm momentarily lost some of its strength, forcing her to adjust her guard while he moved into the space she had been protecting.
He did not exploit the opening with a heavy blow; instead, he touched her shoulder with the heel of his palm, guided her weight away from its centre, and withdrew before she could use his proximity to establish a clinch. Dinah recovered quickly and threw a sharp combination towards his head and body, but Bardock slipped the first two strikes, caught the third on his forearm, and turned her wrist just enough to make the next movement difficult to complete. Every time she tried to rebuild her position, he disrupted the process with a small adjustment, forcing her to defend herself before she could establish an effective counterattack.
The pressure increased gradually, with Bardock using his footwork to guide Dinah towards the edge of the mat while leaving her just enough space to believe that she could regain the centre if she chose the right moment. He feinted towards her ribs, drew her elbow down to protect the opening, and then slipped a quick jab through the gap before she could return her guard to its proper position. When she attempted to punish his advance with a knee strike, he shifted outside the line of attack, caught her arm, and used her movement to turn her away from him, releasing her before the hold could become a joint lock.
Dinah spun back into the exchange with a low kick, but Bardock checked it with his shin and stepped in close enough to make her next strike awkward, his hand touching her shoulder as he redirected her weight towards the side. She managed to recover before he could capitalise fully, and for a moment their movements became a tightly controlled exchange of feints, parries, and short strikes, neither of them using enough force to cause serious harm. Yet Dinah was increasingly aware that she was being guided through the sequence rather than dictating it herself, and every attempt to seize the initiative seemed to result in another small loss of balance or position.
When Bardock finally committed to a sweep of his own, Dinah recognised the movement in time to avoid the worst of it. She sprang over his extended leg, using the jump to create an angle from which she could bring an axe kick down towards his back, confident that his attention would still be on the failed sweep. Her leg came down with considerable speed, but Bardock had already braced, his tail uncoiling behind him in a sudden, controlled lash. The thick brown appendage struck across her side with a heavy crack that sounded more like a length of chain snapping against armour than a living limb making contact, and Dinah was thrown off her trajectory before she could complete the kick. She travelled several metres across the mat, struck the padded flooring, and rolled onto one shoulder before coming to a stop near the equipment racks. Bardock had already withdrawn his tail and returned to a neutral stance, watching her with a degree of concern that suggested he had intended the strike to end the exchange without causing injury. For a heartbeat, the entire room remained silent, every member of the Team staring at the point where Dinah had landed.
"Hey!" Wally shouted, jumping to his feet and pointing accusingly at Bardock. "That was a foul! You can't just bring an extra limb into a martial arts match halfway through and pretend it's perfectly fair, especially when nobody else has one! That's like entering a boxing match and suddenly deciding that your opponent has to deal with a third arm, except your third arm is a giant tail that hits like a wrecking ball. I don't care how technically correct you think it is, you can't expect us to watch that and pretend you didn't just change the rules whenever it suited you."
Bardock turned his head towards Wally, looking more puzzled than offended by the accusation, while Dinah pushed herself upright and began checking her side to make sure that nothing had been damaged. "I used every limb and appendage available to me," Bardock replied, his voice calm enough that it only made Wally sound more agitated by comparison. "She asked me to demonstrate my offensive technique, and I did. My tail is part of my body, just as your speed is part of yours, and I would have been insulting Dinah if I had deliberately ignored an advantage that she had no reason to assume I wouldn't use. If I were fighting an opponent who possessed a tail and chose not to account for it, I would deserve to be punished for the mistake. I don't see why this should be any different simply because the limb happens to be unusual."
Dinah rose to her feet with a small wince, rolled her shoulder once, and looked towards Bardock with the thoughtful expression of someone who had already begun analysing the mistake that had put her on the floor. "I don't particularly like being hit from an angle I hadn't accounted for, but I can't say I didn't leave myself open to it," she admitted, brushing the dust from her training clothes. "I committed to the axe kick because I thought you'd need another moment to recover from your sweep, and I failed to consider that you could use your tail to attack while your upper body was occupied. It was a clever counter, and I should have recognised the possibility as soon as I saw how freely you moved that thing behind you. I would have preferred a little less force, though; for a moment, I felt as though somebody had swung a heavy chain into my side, and I'm fairly certain I'll remember that sensation the next time I spar with anyone who has an unusual anatomy."
Bardock inclined his head, accepting the criticism without attempting to defend the amount of force he had used. "That's reasonable. I controlled the strike, but I could have reduced it further without changing the outcome. I apologise for that. I was trying to end the exchange rather than hurt you, and I misjudged how much force would be needed to make the point."
Dinah gave him a brief, approving nod, then looked around at the Team, whose expressions ranged from impressed to openly irritated. "For the record, I concede the match," she announced. "Bardock has demonstrated that his defensive technique is considerably more advanced than mine, and his offensive work is good enough that I couldn't find a reliable way to regain control once he began pressing the exchange. The tail was an unexpected factor, but I don't intend to make that the excuse for losing. If I had been fighting a real opponent, I would have needed to account for every part of their body, and I failed to do so. That's something I can learn from, and I'd rather the lesson happen here than during a mission when someone else might pay for my mistake."
Her gaze returned to Bardock, and she offered him a hand, which he accepted with a respectful nod. "Your technique is exceptional, and I understand why Diana thought you might be able to contribute something useful to the Team. I would be interested in discussing your training methods in more detail, particularly how you teach someone to recognise an opening before it becomes obvious. Most of the people I train have to work within human physical limitations, but the principles you've demonstrated apply regardless of how strong or fast an opponent happens to be."
Conner, however, had reached the end of his patience. He had watched Dinah dismantle him repeatedly, endured Bardock's casual entrance, and then seen the Saiyan defeat their instructor with what appeared to be very little effort, all while behaving as though the entire exercise had been no more demanding than a warm-up. He stepped away from the group, his hands curling into fists as he looked at Bardock with open resentment.
"This is ridiculous," he said, his voice carrying enough anger that even Wally stopped joking. "Every time you show up, you act as though everyone else in the room is wasting your time, and then you demonstrate that you can do whatever you want without anyone being able to stop you. You walk into the Watchtower whenever you feel like it, you treat the League like a group of people who need to prove themselves to you, and now you've come here to make Dinah look like she doesn't know what she's doing. Maybe you can get away with that when you're dealing with people who are too cautious to challenge you, but we don't have to stand around and let you show off whenever you feel like it."
"Conner," Dinah warned, her voice firm enough to make it clear that she expected him to stop before he said something he would regret. He ignored her, keeping his eyes on Bardock as the anger that had been building throughout the session finally found an outlet.
"What?" he demanded, turning briefly towards her. "You all saw it. He didn't even have to try, and now we're supposed to congratulate him because he can beat everyone in a room without breaking a sweat. If he's so interested in testing what we can do, then why don't we give him a proper challenge? All of us, together. He can fight the entire Team instead of picking people off one at a time, and we can see whether he's still smiling when he has to deal with more than one opponent."
Wally looked from Conner to Bardock, his earlier indignation returning in a more uncertain form, while Artemis shifted her weight as though she were deciding whether to intervene. M'gann's expression tightened, Kaldur clenched his fists and Robin just narrowed his eyes as Dinah took a step towards Conner, but Bardock raised one hand, asking for a moment before anyone else could speak.
The Saiyan did not laugh, nor did he answer the challenge with another dismissive remark. He simply looked at Conner, and the atmosphere in the training room changed so abruptly that the younger hero's next words died in his throat. Bardock's eyes flashed green, the light burning through his pupils with an intensity that seemed to reach beyond the physical space between them, and the familiar sensation of being measured by something vastly more dangerous than oneself settled over the Team. It was the same glare he had used during their first encounter in the Japanese village, when his presence alone had been enough to make experienced heroes hesitate, but this time the effect was immediate and unmistakable.
Conner's muscles locked before he could take another step, his fists remaining clenched at his sides while every instinct in his body screamed at him to move. Wally found himself unable to shift his feet, his thoughts racing ahead while his body refused to respond, and Artemis felt the bow at her shoulder become suddenly distant, as though the simple act of reaching for it had become an impossible task. M'gann's telekinetic aura flickered around her hands and then collapsed, her expression paling as the weight of Bardock's presence pressed against her mind.
It was not pain, and it was not quite fear in the ordinary sense, because none of them had been struck or physically restrained. Their bodies simply refused to obey the commands they were sending, every attempt to move meeting an invisible barrier that made even breathing feel like an act requiring conscious effort. The room seemed to narrow around them, the sounds of the ventilation system fading beneath the pounding of their hearts, while Bardock stood motionless at the centre of their attention. His expression had become cold, not with rage, but with the unmistakable seriousness of a warrior who had decided that the conversation had reached the point where words alone were no longer sufficient.
Conner tried to force his arm upwards, his jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles stood out beneath his skin, but the movement failed before it had properly begun. He had faced opponents who were stronger than himself, and he had been knocked down often enough to understand what it meant to lose a physical contest, but this was different. There was no punch to block, no attack to evade, and no visible mechanism he could overpower through strength alone.
"Before you decide that the answer to every problem is to throw more bodies at it, you should understand what it means to face an opponent who can make the fight end before you've taken your first step." Bardock said, his voice quiet enough that everyone had to concentrate to hear him. "You have strength, speed, powers, and a number of useful abilities, but none of those things will help you if your own mind cannot withstand the pressure of a hostile presence. You are already thinking about how to attack me, how to coordinate your movements, and how to find a way around my defences, yet you haven't even managed to move your feet. If you cannot maintain control of yourself when confronted with something that frightens you, then you are not ready to decide that a group attack is the appropriate answer to an opponent you do not understand. You don't have to be stronger than everyone you meet, and you don't have to win every fight, but you do need the discipline to recognise when your own emotions are making decisions for you." His gaze passed over the Team, the green light in his eyes remaining steady, and his tail moved once behind him before settling again. "None of you is ready to face me until you can withstand this without losing control of your bodies. If you want to challenge me, learn to stand your ground first."
Dinah was not unaffected by the glare, but her response differed markedly from that of the younger heroes. The pressure settled over her like an immense weight, stirring the instinctive caution that came from recognising a threat far beyond the limits of her own strength, yet she managed to remain upright without the complete paralysis that had overtaken the others. Her hands trembled slightly, and she felt her pulse racing, but she kept her breathing measured and her attention fixed on Bardock's face rather than allowing the instinct to flee to dictate her response. She had spent years learning to function under pressure, to recognise fear without surrendering to it, and to keep her thoughts clear when facing opponents who could kill her with a careless movement.
Those lessons did not make her immune to what Bardock was doing, but they gave her something to hold on to when the instinctive part of her mind demanded that she retreat. Slowly, she lowered her guard a fraction, not because she had stopped recognising the danger, but because she understood that the exercise would achieve nothing if she allowed herself to react blindly. Bardock noticed the effort, and the severity in his expression eased into something closer to genuine respect.
"You've got a disciplined mind, Dinah," he said, allowing the pressure to remain for another moment before gradually releasing it. "You felt the threat, but you didn't let the feeling make your decisions for you. That's a valuable quality in a warrior, particularly one who cannot rely on being the strongest person in the room. You recognised that your body wanted to react before you had properly understood what was happening, and you kept enough control to remain standing. That doesn't mean you could withstand this indefinitely, and I wouldn't expect you to, but you showed more composure than the others managed. A true warrior isn't someone who never feels fear; it's someone who can recognise it without allowing it to decide what happens next."
The green light faded from his eyes, and the oppressive sensation vanished so suddenly that Wally stumbled forward, catching himself against the edge of a bench while Conner drew in a sharp breath and flexed his fingers as though checking that they belonged to him again. M'gann lowered herself fully to the floor, one hand pressed against her chest, while Artemis remained still for a moment longer, visibly annoyed at the involuntary reaction she had been unable to prevent. Kaldur leant on a corner of an equipment rack and Robin's knees wobbled.
Conner recovered first, though the anger in his face had been joined by the humiliation of having his challenge answered without a single blow being thrown. He looked as though he wanted to argue, but the experience had left him with no convincing way to frame his complaint, and Dinah's gaze warned him that she would not tolerate another attempt to turn the session into a contest of pride. Bardock, for his part, did not appear interested in prolonging the confrontation. He had made his point, and he was content to let the Team decide what they intended to do with it, provided they understood that the lesson was not an invitation to try the same thing again immediately.
"That was not an attack," he added, addressing the group as a whole. "I didn't injure you, and I didn't use any technique that required me to touch you. I let you experience the effect of my intent, and your own instincts did the rest. There are beings in the universe whose presence can be more dangerous than their physical attacks, and there are fighters who know how to exploit hesitation before an opponent has even realised they are being tested. If you ever encounter someone like that during a mission, you need to be able to think clearly enough to decide whether to fight, retreat, or protect the people around you. If you freeze every time you face something you don't understand, someone else will pay the price."
Dinah stepped between Bardock and the Team before Conner could respond, her expression composed despite the lingering tension in the room. "That's enough for now," she said. "The lesson has been made, and I don't think anyone here needs another demonstration to understand what you're talking about. Conner, you will not be organising an impromptu group attack on a guest because you're frustrated with the outcome of a sparring match, and the rest of you will not be treating what just happened as an invitation to prove that you can withstand it by sheer stubbornness. If Bardock is willing to discuss the technique with us later, we can decide whether there's a safe way to incorporate any part of it into training, but I won't have the Team attempting to reproduce an effect they don't understand simply because it hurt their pride." She turned towards Bardock, her tone remaining respectful without abandoning her responsibility for the room. "I appreciate the demonstration, but next time you decide to use something like that during a training session, I would prefer a little warning. I was able to keep my feet, but the others were not given the opportunity to prepare themselves, and there is a difference between teaching someone to manage fear and simply overwhelming them with it."
Bardock considered her criticism, then inclined his head. "That's fair. I could have explained what I intended to do before demonstrating it, and I should have made sure everyone understood that I wasn't going to hurt them. I just acted because Conner was preparing to turn a training session into a fight he didn't understand, but that doesn't mean I needed to make the lesson quite so abrupt. I'll give you more warning next time." His gaze shifted briefly towards Conner, whose expression remained hard but whose fists had finally unclenched. "And for the record, I don't think any of you are worthless because you couldn't withstand it. You're inexperienced in dealing with that particular kind of pressure, and now you know it exists. The mistake would be pretending you have nothing to learn from the experience simply because you didn't enjoy it. If you want to improve, then use what happened to identify what you need to work on, rather than deciding that the only acceptable outcome is finding a way to make me lose."
Before Conner could answer, a sharp alert sounded from the console at the edge of the training room, and the display illuminated with an incoming mission notification. Dinah turned towards it immediately, the discussion abandoned as the holographic screen expanded into a live feed from a Star Labs transport travelling through Central City. The vehicle had been forced to a stop across an intersection, its security escort scattered around the road while several small robotic figures swarmed over the rear compartment. They resembled mechanical monkeys, their segmented limbs moving with an unsettling agility as they tore into the transport's protective casing and dismantled the locks with tools built into their forearms.
A familiar figure stood behind them, directing the machines with frantic gestures and an expression of gleeful concentration that needed no introduction to anyone who had followed the Team's previous encounters with the scientist. Professor Anthony Ivo had returned, and the transport he was attacking was carrying the remains of Amazo, the android the Team had previously defeated through a combination of coordinated tactics and carefully exploited weaknesses. The camera feed shifted as one of the mechanical monkeys tore away another section of the transport's casing, revealing a collection of disassembled components packed inside reinforced storage frames.
"Professor Ivo," Dinah said, her expression hardening as she watched the feed. "And those must be the M.O.N.Q.I.s. The transport is carrying Amazo's recovered components, which means Ivo has either found out where Star Labs was keeping them or he's been monitoring the facility long enough to learn its security schedule. Either way, he appears to have decided that stealing the remains is preferable to trying to build another android from scratch." She brought up a second display, scanning the available reports as the footage continued to show the mechanical monkeys dismantling the transport's cargo compartment. "The immediate problem is that we don't know how much of Amazo's original systems survived the last engagement, or whether Star Labs has recovered enough of the underlying technology to understand how the android was operating. If Ivo gets his hands on the components, he may be able to reconstruct the body, repair whatever was damaged, and make changes based on the information he's collected since the first fight. We cannot assume that defeating him once means the same tactics will work a second time."
Dinah turned towards the Team, her voice taking on the firm, decisive tone she used when preparing them for a mission. "Get ready to move. You're going to Central City, and your priority is to stop Ivo before he can use the android for anything nefarious. Do not assume that the remains are harmless simply because Amazo was dismantled, and do not allow the M.O.N.Q.I.s to scatter with the components if the transport breaks apart. Conner, I want you watching the heavy machinery and keeping anything dangerous away from civilians. Wally, you take the perimeter and make sure nobody gets caught in the middle of the fight. Artemis, stay mobile and look for opportunities to disable the monkeys without putting the cargo at risk, and M'gann, keep an eye on the overall situation so we can coordinate if the enemy splits up. If Amazo comes back online, remember that he learned from your last encounter, and there's no reason to believe he hasn't learned something from his defeat as well. Do not repeat the same opening moves simply because they worked the first time."
The Team began moving towards the transport platform, gathering equipment and checking their communicators as the mission details appeared on their displays. Bardock remained beside the main console, studying the footage with an expression of growing interest that had little to do with the mechanical monkeys themselves. He had seen enough of the League's technology to recognise that the components being carried away were not ordinary machinery, and the fact that the android had previously fought the Team using their own abilities suggested that its design was more complicated than a conventional weapon. M'gann noticed him watching the screen and slowed beside him, apparently uncertain whether he intended to remain behind or accompany them.
"You've heard of Amazo, haven't you?" she asked. "The first time we fought him, he could copy the powers of the Justice League, which meant that every time we used an ability against him, we risked giving him another advantage. We eventually found a way to defeat him by working together and forcing him into a situation where he couldn't use his copied powers effectively, but we don't know how much of that information he retained or whether Ivo has made changes to the system since then. If he's rebuilt from the same components, he might be even more dangerous than before."
Bardock looked away from the screen and regarded her with the thoughtful attention of someone who had just been presented with an unfamiliar problem worth investigating. "He can copy the abilities of anyone he encounters?" he asked. "Does that mean he reproduces the actual mechanism that allows a person to use their powers, or does he simply imitate the result? There's a considerable difference between acquiring the same ability and understanding the conditions that make it possible. What happened when you first defeated him? Did he adapt to your tactics during the battle, or did he only become more dangerous when he had time to study you?"
M'gann considered the question, evidently recognising that Bardock was approaching the problem from a different angle than the Team had during their previous encounter. "He adapted while we were fighting," she explained as they continued towards the platform. "At first, he seemed to be reacting to the powers we used, but the longer the battle went on, the more effectively he combined them. He could use abilities that he had copied from different members of the League, and it became increasingly difficult to predict what he would do next because he wasn't limited to fighting the way any one of us would. We eventually managed to exploit the fact that he was relying on the powers he had collected, forcing him to deal with situations where copying another ability wasn't enough to solve the problem. He used my uncle's intangibility and then rematerialized around Conner's fist, and Conner just ripped his head off then. I don't know whether he understood everything we were doing, but he certainly learned enough to make the fight more difficult as it continued. If Ivo has had time to examine the remains, he may have been able to improve the system or remove whatever limitations we exploited before."
Bardock's expression grew more interested as he listened, and the faint smile that appeared at the corner of his mouth suggested that the prospect of facing an adaptive opponent appealed to him considerably more than the earlier training session had.
"Then I would like to see it for myself," Bardock said. "If the machine can reproduce the abilities of others, I want to know whether it understands how those abilities work or whether it is simply accumulating weapons without learning how to use them properly. I've encountered fighters who could imitate a technique after seeing it once, but copying the movement is not the same as understanding why it works, and that difference usually becomes obvious when the opponent changes the conditions of the fight. If Amazo has learned to adapt to the Team's methods, then repeating the same tactics would be foolish, but it doesn't follow that the machine has solved every problem it encountered the first time. I would rather see what it does when confronted with something it hasn't encountered before than assume it has become unbeatable simply because it can copy powers." He turned towards Dinah, who had paused near the platform entrance to ensure that everyone had received their assignments. "If you don't object, I'll go with them. I'm not going to interfere with the operation unless there's a reason to do so, but I would like to observe this android in action, particularly if it really can copy the abilities of anyone it encounters."
Dinah studied him for a moment, weighing the advantages of having Bardock present against the complications that might arise if the situation escalated beyond the Team's ability to manage. His presence could make the mission considerably easier if Amazo proved too dangerous to contain, but the very fact that the android copied abilities made it difficult to predict how it might respond to someone whose powers were as unfamiliar as Bardock's. She had no desire to introduce an unpredictable variable into an operation that already involved stolen technology, a dangerous scientist, and a machine that could potentially adapt to the people trying to stop it.
On the other hand, Bardock had shown that he could follow instructions when given a clear objective, and his interest in understanding the android's capabilities might prove useful if the Team needed to devise a new approach. "You can go along," she said at last, "but I want you to observe until we understand what we're dealing with. If Amazo is capable of copying abilities faster than before, we have no idea what might happen if it encounters your energy or whatever makes your powers work. I don't want you giving it a collection of new weapons before we've even established whether it can use them safely. If the situation becomes dangerous, you may have to intervene, but until then, let the Team handle the mission they've been assigned."
Bardock inclined his head, accepting the condition without protest, and stepped aboard the Bio-Ship as M'gann guided the others towards their seats. The interior of the craft was unfamiliar to him, though he had encountered enough living technology during his travels to recognise that its design was considerably more organic than the machines used by the Watchtower. He settled into an available seat, his tail curling comfortably beside him while Wally took his place nearby and continued to glance in his direction with the wary curiosity of someone who had not entirely recovered from the earlier demonstration.
Conner sat opposite them, his expression still tense, but he kept his objections to himself as the hatch closed and the ship began preparing for launch. M'gann moved to the controls, bringing up the route to Central City while the others checked their equipment and reviewed the mission details. Bardock watched the displays with growing interest, thinking about an android that could imitate the abilities of its opponents and a scientist who had apparently decided that rebuilding it was worth the risk of unleashing it again.
As the Bio-Ship rose from the cavern and accelerated towards the open sky, Bardock looked towards M'gann once more. "Tell me something," he said, his voice carrying easily over the low hum of the craft. "When you defeated Amazo the first time, did you win because you discovered a weakness in the way its copying system worked, or because you found a way to make its own abilities interfere with one another? I'm asking because if the machine is simply reproducing the results of what it observes, then it may be vulnerable to techniques that require more than raw output. "
M'gann looked at him thoughtfully, then returned her attention to the controls as Central City appeared on the navigation display. "We found a way to make teamwork work against him, but I don't think we ever fully understood how his copying system functioned," she admitted. "We knew what it could do, and we learned enough to exploit its limitations, but we never had the time or the resources to study it properly. If Ivo has been able to rebuild him, we may have to discover those limitations all over again."
Bardock settled back into his seat, his expression turning contemplative as he considered the implications. A machine that copied powers could be dangerous, but it might also reveal something about the nature of power itself, particularly if its creators had attempted to reduce abilities that arose from entirely different origins to a common system of imitation. He had no intention of allowing the android to endanger the Team or the civilians of Central City, and Dinah's instructions were clear enough that he would leave the first moves to the people who had already fought it once.
Yet he was curious, and curiosity had always been one of the reasons he continued to seek out unfamiliar opponents even when he had little to gain from defeating them. If Amazo had learned from its previous defeat, then it might force the Team to change their approach, and if it could truly reproduce any ability it encountered, Bardock wanted to know whether that included the strange energy pathways he was still learning to access in this universe. He looked out through the Bio-Ship's forward viewport as the clouds parted beneath them, Central City's skyline appearing in the distance, and waited for the machine to show them what it had become.
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A.N. I get that these chapters might stretch a little. Still trying to find my true rhythm after the two year hiatus. I'm still kind of in essay mode every time I touch a keyboard. Just let me know. Critique helps both me and you.