For Kara, an elderly man pressing down on a middle-aged man was a bit of a hot-headed scene to witness.
She shook her head, thinking she might be reading too much into it.
Ra's al Ghul released Bruce Wayne with a snort, seemingly satisfied with the lesson he had imparted. Ra's believed Bruce would stay down and not dare rise again.
Adjusting his suit, Ra's turned his attention to Kara and Bruce. Dressed sharply in a neat suit and leather shoes, Ra's might have seemed like a gentleman. However, knowing his intentions, no one would mistake him for one.
"You think you can stop me?" Ra's sneered, glancing at both of them. Despite facing two versions of Batman, he remained indifferent. "You're just two ordinary people hiding behind masks. Neither of you can stop me or this train."
Kara lowered the hand she'd used to cover her eyes, peeking through her fingers, then shrugged. "He can't, but that doesn't mean I can't. It's time to show you what real skill looks like."
As she spoke, Kara unsheathed the long blade strapped to her back. With swift, deadly precision, she beheaded the four henchmen Bruce had knocked down earlier.
Ra's eyes twitched in irritation.
Unlike Bruce, who held back, Kara's strikes were calculated to kill. Bruce had merely incapacitated them, while Kara made sure they'd never stand again.
Ra's had been confident because he knew his men would recover and return to fight. But now, he stood alone, facing Kara and Bruce.
Bruce, still on the ground, glanced at Kara, who returned his gaze.
"Why? Feeling queasy?" Kara asked coldly. "You have to realize something—if you let your 'master' go, millions of people in Gotham could die. Do you want to gamble the lives of forty million people for your personal code?"
Bruce sighed. "I didn't say anything."
Even Bruce understood the weight of the situation.
"That's better," Kara said, turning her attention back to Ra's. "By the way, do you mind if I clean up the mess for you?"
Her tone was dry, almost mocking. By "cleaning up," she clearly referred to eliminating threats, a job Bruce was unwilling to finish.
Bruce rolled his eyes but remained on the ground, feigning disinterest.
Ra's sneered at the exchange. "You think she can defeat me?"
Kara's slender frame, emphasized by her modified Batsuit, clearly marked her as a woman. The voice changer in her mask darkened her tone, but her feminine cadence was unmistakable.
Ra's felt insulted. How could a mere woman challenge him?
"I..." Ra's began, but Kara moved before he could finish.
In an instant, her silver-white blade slashed toward him, cutting through the air with deadly speed.
Ra's instinctively stepped back, pressing himself against the wall of the train. The cold metal sent a shiver down his spine, but he'd managed to dodge Kara's initial strike.
Her decisiveness and ruthlessness surprised him. She hadn't hesitated or fought conventionally but had opted for an efficient sneak attack instead.
"You..." Ra's began again, anger flashing in his eyes.
Kara didn't wait for him to finish. She lunged forward, raising her right leg for a powerful knee strike.
Ra's barely sidestepped, pressing himself against the train wall.
Boom!
The train shuddered violently as Kara's knee connected with its structure, leaving a deep dent.
Even Ra's, accustomed to extraordinary displays of strength, was momentarily stunned by her power.
Bruce shielded his eyes, wincing as he remembered the times Kara's strength had been directed at him during their training.
Ra's had underestimated her because of her gender. In reality, Kara was faster, stronger, and more lethal than Bruce. Her attacks were crisp, decisive, and designed to kill without hesitation.
Kara remained silent, her cold expression hidden behind her mask. The lower half of her face betrayed a faint, icy smirk, and her red eyes burned with determination.
"Stop running, old man. What are you, a rat?" Kara taunted, her voice cutting through the noise.
She grabbed onto the steel wall of the train, her fingers sinking into the metal as she propelled herself forward. Ra's had no choice but to retreat further, leading them toward the control room of the train.
Cornered in the cockpit, Ra's finally ran out of space to maneuver. He turned to face Kara, a hint of fear flashing in his eyes as he recognized her sheer strength.
"Who are you?" Ra's demanded, desperate for answers.
Kara rolled her eyes beneath her mask. "Why does everyone ask that question? If I wanted you to know who I was, do you think I'd be wearing a mask?"
Ra's opened his mouth to retort, but Kara didn't give him the chance.
"And you," Kara continued coldly, her voice dropping an octave. "Life is a cycle, and your part in it is over."
Her tone was dark, her words laced with menace.
Ra's, unwilling to accept defeat, adopted a defensive stance, prepared for Kara's next move.
As Kara prepared to strike, Bruce finally got to his feet. Instead of assisting Kara, he turned his attention to the train's microwave emitter, still active and endangering the city.
Kara noticed Bruce's indifference and couldn't help but silently complain. Seriously? I'm here fighting for my life, and you're just playing technician?
Ra's noticed Kara's brief distraction and seized the moment to make his escape. He leaped onto the control panel, aiming to jump out of the high-speed train.
But just as he was about to leap, Kara appeared beside him, her hand locking onto his ankle with iron-like strength.
"Did I say you could leave?" Kara snarled.
Ra's turned, his face pale with fear. He had no idea how she'd caught up so quickly.
With a sneer, Kara lifted Ra's into the air and slammed him into the control panel.
Boom!
The force of the impact left Ra's lifeless, his body crumpled against the console.
The train screeched as it began to slow, but Kara's cold expression remained unchanged.
For Kara, the mission wasn't over until the city was safe—and Ra's al Ghul was no longer a threat.
Lars didn't possess superhuman regenerative abilities like those found in comic books. Her physical fitness was extraordinary but still human. If not for Kara's reluctance to let Bruce uncover her deepest secret, Lars wouldn't have survived their encounter even for a moment—she would have decapitated him at supersonic speed in an instant.
In the end, Lars' fatal mistake came when he miscalculated, thinking Kara was distracted. It exposed a massive opening in his defense. With precision, Kara grabbed his foot and swung him like a ragdoll, slamming him into the control console.
What was left of Lars was unrecognizable, a mangled mess of flesh and blood. Any attempts to recover his remains for evidence would be futile.
Kara dusted her hands and turned her attention back to the train's core, standing next to the dangerous machine. Her expression was indifferent as she glanced at Bruce, who was frantically searching for a way to shut down the device.
"This thing doesn't make any sense," Kara said, her tone sharp.
The train's path left devastation in its wake. Underground water pipes several meters away had their contents vaporized entirely. Yet, despite standing near the machine, neither Kara nor Bruce showed any ill effects from its influence.
By all logic, Lars and his associates should have succumbed long ago due to the proximity.
Bruce rolled his eyes at Kara's comment. "If you've got time to complain, maybe you could help me? Those guys made sure to destroy the controls on purpose."
Kara shrugged, picking up a knife she had taken from one of Lars' lackeys. She began walking toward the machine.
"What are you doing?" Bruce asked sharply, stepping in front of her. "Don't do anything reckless. I don't want us both vaporized because of you!"
Kara stopped, giving Bruce a sidelong glance. "Relax. Who do you think I am? After you disappeared from Metropolis University without a word, do you know what I was doing? I read every book in their library. Twice."
Bruce muttered something under his breath about arrogance but let her pass.
Kara ignored him, activating her X-ray vision to analyze the microwave transmitter. She scanned through the machine's dense layers of steel and electronics, searching for its central hub.
All machines had a core—the heart of their functionality. If the central mechanism was disabled, the entire device would cease operation. Like a computer's power supply, if it failed, the entire system would shut down.
Pinpointing the hub, Kara wasted no time. With a burst of speed too fast for Bruce to perceive, she drove the blade in her hand directly into the core.
"Puff."
The sound was anticlimactic, almost disappointing, but effective. The blade pierced through the steel as though it were paper, disabling the hub with surgical precision.
The machine emitted a deep, vibrating hum before powering down completely.
Bruce exhaled in relief, slumping into a nearby chair. "Thank God."
Kara removed the blade and noticed it was coated with a mix of substances—both the machine's fluids and the blood of her earlier victims. She casually wiped the knife on the edge of Bruce's cape.
Bruce turned, his voice laced with irritation. "I'm not cleaning that for you, Kara. And that's the only cape I've got."
Kara froze, glanced at the cape, and then at Bruce. With a huff, she tossed the knife aside, muttering something under her breath.
Bruce's eye twitched at her nonchalant behavior. "Do you even realize how expensive that cape is?"
"Whatever," Kara retorted, collapsing into another chair. She stretched her arms and leaned back, the fatigue of the night catching up to her.
"It's finally over," she murmured.
But Bruce wasn't as relaxed. His gaze shifted to the console, its bloodstains a grim reminder of Kara's methods.
"Couldn't you have handled that differently?" Bruce asked, his voice low.
Kara sighed, turning to meet his eyes. "You're asking why I killed him?"
Bruce nodded, his expression unreadable.
"I didn't enjoy it," Kara admitted, leaning forward. "But Lars was a threat to millions of lives. He wasn't going to stop. Even if we stopped him today, he would've come back. And next time, we might not be so lucky."
Bruce frowned, his moral compass conflicting with her justification. "But we're not judges or executioners, Kara. We don't have the right to decide who lives or dies. That's not justice."
Kara's eyes darkened. "Then what's the point, Bruce? If you believe we're breaking the law by stopping criminals, maybe you should've stayed home. Let Lars destroy Gotham, let him kill billions. Because according to your logic, we're all just criminals anyway."
Bruce's jaw tightened. "Kara, your reasoning is dangerous. Once you decide it's easier to kill than to capture, you lose what makes us different from them."
Kara froze, the words cutting deep. Her thoughts briefly wandered to a dark possibility—a version of herself as an unjust Superman, one who had abandoned all morals.
Was that who she was becoming?
Kara didn't answer, but the weight of Bruce's words lingered between them.
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