[ Artificial Lake, Abandoned Amusement Park, Gotham city ]
Killer Croc wanted to emerge and shout something back, but then remembered—he had no childhood. Not really. He'd been abandoned early, forced to survive in the sewers, scavenging day after day. Unlike the four mutant turtles next door who had an elderly rat mentor as a cheat code for life, Croc had clawed his way to speech through sheer grit and stubbornness. Whatever language he had now came from scraping words off sewer walls and listening in on subway rants. In short, he was self-taught—but against the relentless verbal barrage coming from the shore, he was woefully outgunned.
It helped, just barely, that his atavism had landed him in the cold-blooded camp—literally. As a reptile, his blood circulation was slower, his fury dulled by nature's design. Add to that the minor brain damage caused by his mutation, and it wasn't hard to understand why Robin's advanced-level taunts weren't quite landing as intended. By the time he'd puzzled out one barbed insult, five new ones had already flown past him like arrows in a war he couldn't even see clearly.
Just when Killer Croc was starting to feel dizzy from confusion more than rage, a new voice came crackling through Barbara's earpiece.
"Hey, Barbara, Thea and Selina will hit the field in one minute. We need to draw Killer Croc out. I'm opening a separate channel for you. Time to join the cursing brigade." Felicity sounded positively giddy.
Barbara froze. Excuse me? Me? Curse? She'd been raised on the finer pillars of education, her childhood filled with classical music and curated reading lists. Her worst offense had been correcting a teacher's grammar. Now she was being asked to weaponize language like a seasoned alley brawler? Her first instinct was hesitation. Can I even do that? But the longer she watched Robin, red-faced and practically foaming from effort, the more a strange itch grew in her chest.
He looks... oddly satisfied? Like he's lived his whole life waiting for this one, liberating insult-laced moment.
Barbara bit her lip. Maybe this was what people meant by learning the "wrong" things fast. It takes three years to pick up good habits but three days to pick up bad habits, right?
And what if she needed this in the future? Gotham was not short on mistresses, miscreants, and megalomaniacs. What if, one day, she needed to verbally dismantle a homewrecker or rip apart a crook's ego in three lines or less? I owe it to myself to be ready.
A renewed resolve filled her chest. A modern woman should know her way around firewalls and frying pans—and maybe some flaming insults too. She straightened her shoulders.
"I've found a mixed version for you," Felicity chirped cheerily. "It's called Make Your Opponent a New Human Being – 2007 Trial Edition. The reviews say it's... devastating. I'm setting up your channel now. Robin, explain the techniques while I calibrate—hehe."
Barbara tightened her gloves and cracked her neck. Techniques? In a street-cursing match?
Was there really anything she needed to be careful about? Barbara found herself puzzled. Wasn't it just yelling at the top of your lungs?
Robin, ever the responsible boyfriend, kept a healthy three-meter buffer zone between them—both for safety and scent—and replied solemnly, "Dear, there are a few techniques you need to remember. First, breathe from the lower abdomen, then channel the air through your chest into your vocal cords. Be careful not to release the sound all at once—do it step by step. Watch me."
Without waiting for a response, Robin squared his shoulders and lifted his chin like a choir boy in the opera house, proceeding to demonstrate what he claimed were standard vocal warm-ups. His voice rang out, clear and dramatic, almost artistic. When he finished, he beamed with pride and gave Barbara a thumbs-up, eyes twinkling with encouragement, silently inviting her to give it a try.
In truth, Robin was feeling a little too proud of himself. His past quietness had never been due to a lack of ability—it was simply a side effect of being raised under the bat-shaped shadow of Bruce Wayne. After all, when Batman smiled, it usually meant he was either brainwashed or mind controlled by the Joker, and someone needed to call Justice League immediately.
But today—today was different. With Felicity's support whispering through the earpiece and a newfound talent discovered, the repressed Boy Wonder had been reborn. The thrill of creative cursing surged through his veins. He hadn't felt this good since he learned Barbara liked boys who brooded.
Barbara blinked, slightly stunned by this version of her boyfriend. Was this really her Robin? The same brooding, one-syllable-answer Robin who once spent three hours silently staring at a crossword puzzle? When Batman returned and saw his prized apprentice like this, he might genuinely suffer psychic damage.
Just then, Felicity's cheerful voice returned in her ear. "Ah, I'm back. All systems go. Barbara, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear," she replied, uncertainly bracing herself.
"Then let's get started…"
At that moment, the creature lurking in the center of the lake—the infamous Killer Croc—noticed something odd. It wasn't just the young man taunting him now; the woman had joined in, too. What was this, some sort of male-female tag team of insult? Hmph. Let them try. His blood might circulate slowly, but his temper was even slower. Did they think his crocodile skin was for show? Let it be known—every inch of him was thick-skinned, especially the face.
So, Killer Croc relied on that thick hide and calmly endured the verbal assault, floating serenely in the water.
But this time… this time something was different. This wasn't just painful to hear—it was effective. The man-and-woman duo struck with unexpected force.
Perhaps it was because they were lovers, but their voices harmonized in an oddly complementary way. And with Felicity carefully matching lines in their earpieces, the insults sounded almost… melodic.
Barbara was hesitant at first, but soon she began to lean into the rhythm Robin had taught her. Her soprano sliced through the air like a choir solo, and when paired with Robin's full-bodied resonance, the result created an acoustic effect more powerful than either could have achieved alone. Their duet stirred ripples across the lake's surface.
Scolded for several minutes straight, Barbara shed her restraint like a tattered cloak. She began to deliver her lines in the same melodic cadence she'd used in church choir as a child—switching from saintly hymns to flirtatious serenades without missing a beat. She even tossed the occasional wink in Robin's direction.
Robin, dazed by love and adrenaline, looked upon her as if seeing her for the first time. A holy witch, a warrior of light, an opera of vengeance—whatever she was, she was his, and he had never been more certain that this was the woman he'd follow to the ends of the Earth.
The display of affection—so blatant, so glowing—finally pierced through Killer Croc's cold-blooded composure. As a reptilian recluse who'd been single for thirty years, this shameless show of love was more than he could bear.
Praise, he could ignore. Insults, he could shrug off. But this? This open-air relationship showcase? It was unforgivable.
The rage he had buried long ago surged up like a tsunami. Gone was the patience of a lurking predator. The crocodile's brain lit up with a single, furious thought: I'm going to roast this couple alive.
He abandoned his earlier plan to wait things out. His nostrils flared, his fists clenched, and then—
"Kill!" he bellowed, erupting from the lake in a spray of filthy water.
It was a line he had once read in a tattered novel during his sewer-dwelling youth—a book translated from the distant East, where protagonists screamed "Kill!" before their powers erupted and they crushed their foes. There had been another line too—"Courting the death!"—but Croc felt it lacked punch, so he dropped it.
He'd been bullied then, beaten for his monstrous face. But whenever he roared that word, he found the strength to fight back. Killer Croc they had called him. He hadn't minded. It had a nice ring to it.
On the shore, the dynamic duo were still riding the high of their performance. Batman's absence, Gotham's madness—for once, none of it mattered. In this moment, it felt like even the sky could be used as a blanket, and the earth beneath them as a bed. And if not for the untimely interruption, they might have tried it.
"Be careful, he's coming out," Felicity's voice crackled urgently through the comms. From her drone's vantage point above the lake, she saw the first ripple of something massive breaking the surface.
Robin and Barbara blinked. Right. The crocodile. They had almost forgotten.
To Be Continued...
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[POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS]