Alternative Rewritten

Chapter Three: Purpose

"So much for Canary training me," Renegade called out right before jumping sideways to avoid a black glove swinging in his direction. The teenager immediately ducked under the attacking arm and tried for a punch at Batman's chin, but the dark knight was a step ahead. Instead of dodging as Renegade expected, he brought his forehead down and straight into the younger boy's head. Disoriented from the brutal headbutt, Renegade was easily taken down when Batman swung at him again.

"From the looks of it, you might need extra training to remain on par with the others," Batman commented heartlessly, the white lenses of his cowl burning into Renegade's head. "The others have mentors that will train them, Black Canary is only meant to be an occasional instructor. Since my fighting style is the most similar to yours out of the rest of the League, I decided I would be the most capable one to train you." His expression was unreadable as Renegade climbed back to his feet. "I am busy most of the time, so other League members might have to train you sometimes. This isn't a permanent solution."

"Maybe the other Leaguers will be nicer," Renegade muttered, rubbing at the bruising spot on his forehead. He hid a smile as the neutral frown on Batman's lips deepened, clearly disappointed in the way he was fighting. Keeping his own expression guarded and hidden with a faked pout, Renegade accessed the data in his chip that he had been recording since their little battle started. Behind his eyes, he could review Batman's actions and locate weak points, patterns, anything that would give him an upper hand.

"Real enemies won't be nice," Batman told him, tone dipping into bitterness. Renegade was actually taken aback by the show of any type of emotion and immediately wanted to know what caused it to be brought up, but any type of digging he could have done was already crushed into dust when Batman straightened his shoulders and in the blink of an eye he extended one arm, releasing a Batarang that sliced through the air, directly in Renegade's path.

Renegade barely managed to escape the projectiles by flinging himself to the floor and rolling away. Batman was unrelenting, though. The man appeared next to him and grabbed him by the back of his uniform, lifting him into the air. "You're too slow," he growled, and Renegade was abruptly dropped onto the floor. "If I was an enemy, you would be dead."

"No," Renegade said with a breathy laugh, rolling onto his back and grinning from ear to ear. "I would have won."

A pregnant pause followed before smoke suddenly erupted from Batman's cape. The dark knight was quick to dive down to try and locate the source, but his reflexes were a second too slow. The speaker on the fake explosive disk Renegade used went "bang." There wasn't an actual explosion. The disk literally said "bang." Renegade even used his own voice for it, sounding as teasing and smug as he felt right now, in the present time. Ah, it felt good to use that. It felt really good.

When the smoke cleared and Batman's irritated face was revealed, Renegade felt like it was the cherry on the cake. Despite the downward curve of Batman's lips to show he was displeased, the air between them changed. It wasn't exactly respect, more like... acknowledgment. A silent one; from what little of what Renegade saw of Batman's character, he knew it was like pulling teeth to get an actual compliment out of Batman. "You messed with one of the disks I gave you." Not a question, though it still silently demanded explanation.

"Yeah, I got bored and tinkered around with the stuff you gave me. I figured I could use these in our sparring session, but it wouldn't be right if they still exploded. So, I modified it so it released smoke but didn't actually explode. I guess in reality I could've used a normal smoke bomb, but I liked my addition." Renegade shrugged, playing nonchalant, but he was studying Batman's expression, hoping for the slightest change of his facial features to show that he was at least a little impressed. To his dismay, nothing in his expression changed in the slightest bit.