What?

Chapter Two

The screens become active. There is no need to fight anymore and the boy senses that. I walk up to the monitors. Some would find the sight of anything inside the body so hard to look at they'd pass out. I am not one of these people. In fact, flowing in the blood streams that have appeared on screen are tiny machines that I had made. It's almost art. Every single one of them active and willing to do their job when I say. Robin looks at me trying to keep a calm face.

"Nanoscopic probes. The Chronoton Detonator was merely the bait for a much larger trap," Every word I leak into the air turns into an invisible rope that is slowly binding him, yet he can't see the threads around him. "You see, with the push of a button, my probes will destroy your friends from the inside out."

Disgust marks his face, while detestment runs from his voice. Amusing, "You can't control them. No matter what you threaten, they'll never obey you."

Even more amusing, what he thinks that is. No time to take in the inside joke though. The boy knows so little. He'll have to learn. This has to be done just right. I start to slowly walk around the Boy Wonder. He stays planted in place, but turns to face me as I move.

"This isn't about your friends, Robin. It's about you. It's always been about you." I'm suddenly very glad for the effect I can have on people. As an assassin, I generally have a long lasting impression on both civilians and criminals alike. I could always ensnare people into fearing me in ways unimaginable to most. I see the total confusion on his face. He's not trying to shield his emotions as of now.

"What?"

That one small word makes my day and it's still early in the morning. He doesn't understand at all or maybe in the back of his mind he does (yet he doesn't want it to be right or true). That doesn't matter. It will make this request all the more...well, easier for me to enjoy.

"Sending trouble your way, leaving cryptic clues for you to unravel; I was testing you. For some time now, I have been searching for an apprentice. Someone to follow in my footsteps," Everything that I have done now has been to prepare for this next sentence and the circumstances after it. I walk over to him and lean in little bit to get my point across with more emphasis, "and Robin, I've chosen you. Congratulations."

His eyes narrow as I say it. My eyes narrow in knowing that he can't say no, in knowing that as of now I can control him. He backs away defensively in an instant. He must think I'm insane for having even chosen him. On the contrary, I'm quite sane. Most criminals are a little loose, but I am as stiff and as hard as steel. They think that criminality has it's foundation on power. Power is important, but it isn't the foundation. It is the goal.

I know what I'm doing. I know that most people would consider it wrong. Yet, right and wrong don't seem to matter in this world of warring nations and a society and economy that can be twisted by a little money. People are fine with wrong things happening as long as it doesn't affect them. If this wasn't the case, then the US government would have been after me extensively since I became an assassin. That's just it. I don't care about these terms anymore. People care for their own safety and this alone, all the while claiming to care for the terms of right and wrong. Thus one can see the hypocrites that walk the streets of Jump City.

Robin's different though. He does care for others. He links others safety to his own. It's one of his few weaknesses. His care is a hole in the tapestry that is his own. From this hole I can pull him apart from the inside out into a heap of tangled string, a mess of thread on the floor. I can then separate that massive heap of his once tapestry threads into one string without the knots and confusion. I can weave that into something new. He begins to speak trying to make his voice as firm and as threatening as possible.