Bab 22: Outclassed
"You can call me Talon." His gaze then turned to Batgirl, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Moving yourself to my right won't help you much I'm afraid." Despite his face being hidden, his amusement was clearly heard through the tone of his voice and both young crime fighters tensed, not many would be so amused when faced with the two of them.
"What do you want?" Barbara questioned, her hand moving to palm a few Batarangs should the situation require them.
By the looks of things, it would be necessary very soon.
The Talon said nothing, only looking between Esau and Barbara in amusement before finally answering her question. "I'm here under the orders of my masters to test you, Esau Jacobson." He extenuated this point by looking directly at the blonde which instantly made the two far more alert and wary of the individual in front of them.
"What do you want with him?" Batgirl questioned, her voice harsh and almost panicked which made Esau look at her in temporary confusion.
"Now that, Barbara Gordon," there was no gravitas behind his words, nothing to match the weight of their meaning as Esau's eyes widened in shock, guard slightly dropping. "Is a question for another time." Then he moved, suddenly and with incredible speed as he dashed towards Esau before he even had a chance to recover.
The bombshell discovery as to who Batgirl was had left him reeling and therefore unable to react quickly enough to Talon who closed the distance between them rapidly. His guard was only partly raised before the sidekick slammed into his chest with enough force to see him flying backwards, body toppling over the ledge of the building and plummeting to the ground.
"Esau!" Barbara exclaimed in shock, going to help her childhood friend only for the Talon to appear in front of her.
Stumbling to put some distance between herself and the foe before her, Barbara narrowed her eyes in anger before sliding into a fighting stance.
Even with the mask covering his face, she could tell the Talon was smirking. "Now, now Miss Gordon." The Talon taunted. "Have some faith in your young friend and focus more on yourself."
Then he was upon with equally fast and ferocious strikes that left her completely on the defensive and constantly forced to take numerous steps back for every step he took. It took every ounce of skill she had to just parry the first blow and even then, she struggled to do that in time. Not to mention that as soon as she parried one strike, another would be within inches of hitting her.
Barbara had come across and fought many skilled fighters, but none had ever matched the level of her teacher, Batman. Bruce was fast, powerful and extremely skilled with a terrifying intellect that allowed him to contend with the strongest of individuals in this world. However, the Talon was a foe that in her eyes was his equal in nearly every way, except for one.
The Talon did not hold back.
Batman when teaching her and Dick to fight held back in their spars so as to not injure them.
Then when fighting villains, Batman held back so as to not kill them.
The Talon, however, had no such restrictions.
In this sense, the Talon was far more dangerous than Bruce and that thought terrified her.
Each blow that she blocked or parried sent vibrations throughout her entire body and they almost moved faster than she could react. But the moment she managed to block or avoid one, the other would be right there, leaving her little in the way of time or space to move appropriately. She was trapped, constantly forced to move just enough to minimise the amount of damage she took from each blow without ever being able to escape unharmed.
Due to that, it was only a matter of time before she was hit when one of his strikes slipped through her guard, the uppercut digging into her stomach and driving all the air out of her lungs was just as painful as she had imagined it would be. Temporarily, her vision darkened as she was lifted off the ground, her body folding over his fist as spittle fell from her mouth.
Removing his fist from her stomach, the Talon stepped back and watched Batgirl drop to her knees gagging and coughing, spluttering for air.
She was skilled, there was no doubt about that.
But she was nowhere near ready enough to face an opponent of his calibre.
In time, with more training and accumulated experience, she would be able to become a match for himself, but as of now, she was easy to take care of. It was unfortunate that killing her now was not an option, she would prove to be troublesome in the future, but if he did, he would irrecoverably ruin any chance of recruiting Esau.
"Such a shame." He murmured, turning around.
There he saw Esau pulling himself back over the ledge.
Talon was not surprised at this development, he had believed that the young boy would prove to be an excellent disciple, all Esau required was proper training. Esau was a blade that just needed proper forging and once that was done, then there was no doubt he would prove to be a very dangerous asset.
If he had died from that fall, then it would have simply saved him the time and effort to train a failure.
"I see you survived." The Talon spoke and Esau pulled out the knives strapped to his thighs and spun them on the palm of his hands before holding them in a reverse grip, it was a flashy and uncessary move. "Shall we?"
Without saying anything, Esau charged forwards and swung at the Talon who masterfully directed his strikes away from himself, not even moving from his position. But Esau did not overextend or get agitated, instead correcting his footing and coming round another swipe that the Talon leaned back as to avoid only marginally, the blade a hair's breadth away from cutting the mask covering his face.
Still, the Talon had to fully move away upon catching Esau's foot coming up in a roundhouse kick out of the corner of his eye, the second swipe having been used as a feint/cover for the real strike.
However, while a good tactic it was far too slow and far too choreographed and therefore, easy to avoid.
So, to easily avoid the strike, took a large, quick step back opening a small distance between them that caused the kick to miss by a wide margin. It was obvious Esau had intended for that to be a crushing blow by the fact that he nearly did a full three-sixty before managing to regain his balance. Yet, the Talon did not capitalise on that opening due to the fact that he heard the sound of whistling as something cut through the air.
Ducking low, Talon noticed the Batarangs embedded into the wall behind him, but yet they did not explode. 'No doubt she does not want to alert the others.' It was a smart plan, an explosion was a quick way to alert everyone that their location had been compromised and by ensuring that did not happen, opened the opportunity for Esau and Barbara to take out the Fearless Toxin after dealing with him.
Yet that failed for two reasons.
First, Talon had already informed the guards below about Batgirl and Black Hood being here and so, the Fearless Toxin was already if not about to be packed up and on the move to another location.
Secondly, it implied that Esau and Barbara could defeat him.
They couldn't.
Something they both learned the hard way when they rushed him.
The two unleashed a flurry of attacks and Talon was almost impressed at their teamwork, their fighting styles complementing the two almost perfectly. Esau was a brawler and a tank, capable of taking quite a bit of punishment before starting to show any sign of slowing down due to any injury. Not to mention there was the fact that his stamina was freakishly impressive, it was one of the things that had caught his eye when studying Esau.
Barbara on the other hand was very much a flexible and almost acrobatic fighter, nimble and graceful in her movements almost like a dancer. Using her more flexible body and speed to move around Esau and attack from awkward angles that for ordinary fighters would be extremely difficult and almost impossible to block.
Unluckily for them, he was far from ordinary.
Yet, to be fair to them, he would admit that on more than one occasion Talon was forced to block a punch or kick from one angle, and another strike from the complete opposite angle. As a result, Talon was forced to concede ground, stepping back even further to put himself in a more favourable defensive position against the unending onslaught from the two fighters.
But at the end of the day, it was only a short lived victory for the two fighters.
Having seen all he needed to from Esau, Talon was no longer content to simply defend and so, went on the offensive.
As Barbara came around for a high kick, Esau having moments ago gone low, it was the perfect strike to split Talon's attention. Except, he, unlike he had in the past, stood his ground and gripped the young girl's ankle and pulled her towards him. The sudden change in movement from her opponent put Barbara off-balance enough for the Talon to land a kick to her stomach.
In most cases, Esau would have been there to block the attack, allowing Barbara to recover and retaliate.
However, he too had fallen victim to Talon's sudden change in tactics.
While Barbara had gone for the high kick, Esau had gone low, aiming for a punch to his stomach, aiming to wind his opponent. The Talon, in response, had blocked this much as Esau had excepted, but what came next was not something he had been prepared for. For as he pulled Barbara towards him with his kick, Talon's body shifting to a side stance, he pulled Esau with him, flipping his body over where he landed on his back.
Momentarily stunned, Esau could do nothing but watch as the kick landed on Barbara's exposed side, she gasped in shocked pain as she was sent slamming into the wall behind her. She then collapsed to the floor, grimacing in agony as the Batarangs that had been embedded there clattered to the ground around her.
Growling, Esau rushed to his feet only for a quick, sharp jab to clip him on the chin, Esau's knees momentarily going weak as he swayed there dangerously.
Yet as Talon came close, Esau managed to get him in a clinch and then used that as an opportunity to drive Talon back with nothing but brute strength and determination. Even then, that proved not to be enough as Talon dug his feet into the ground and brought Esau's momentum to a grinding halt, elbows slamming into the young man's exposed back.
After a few strikes, Talon then hooked his arms through the gaps that appeared between Esau's arms and his waist, using that to pull him up to his full height where they stood face-to-face. There, the Talon began to truly unleash a plethora of blows upon Esau who despite trying his best could not block or parry them all.
The first few he managed to block with a cross guard, but after that he was unable to keep up.
Two blows to the stomach had Esau instinctively lowering his guard to cover his abused area.
Another few blows to the face had Esau stumbling back in a daze.
This was followed by the Talon simultaneously gripping Esau's head and bringing it down while jumping into the air to slam a knee into his face.
That single blow sent Esau's head whipping back, blood splurting down his face from his broken nose.
The Talon then slowly landed, taking a moment to notice Esau's stomach was fully exposed before almost lazily spinning around, his foot lashing out and smashing into him. Once more, Esau was flung back right into the edge, luckily for him though, he struck it low enough to not be sent thrown over the edge.
Unlike before, he would have not been able to grab hold of an edge and would have instead plummeted to his death.
Instead, he slumped over in a seated position, arms limply laying against the floor and his head drooping forwards.
Looking down at Esau, Talon then looked at Barbara to see her groaning and struggling to her feet, hands full of Batarangs and face twisted into one of rage-fueled vengeance.
They had potential, a lot of it.
But right now, both had only just begun to scratch the surface and it would be a long time till they were able to fight individuals like him on even ground.
Still, he could see exactly why Batman had taken such an interest in them.
With nary a word, Talon leapt off the edge of the building and disappeared from the area altogether, leaving both the vigilantes beaten and defeated on the rooftop.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Carrots123
Carrots123 So, another chapter is done and with it, Esau and Barbara both get their asses kicked by Talon who proves to be an incredibly skilled and dangerous figure. One that has a unique interest in Esau and has also revealed who Batgirl is. A shocking twist, but one that neither Esau nor Barbara can control as Talon knows exactly who they are. However, for those of you who know who Talon is and who he works for, then you should know whose coming next. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed and if you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone