[Third Person Pov]
As Skulker's internal systems quietly mapped every movement, every strike pattern, every millisecond of delay, he shifted fully onto the defensive. It was no easy task. Danny, Batman, and Robin fought as a single, lethal unit—three minds moving in perfect, brutal harmony.
Danny raised both hands. A constellation of glacial blades of ice materialized around him, spinning in tight orbits before launching forward one after another in a relentless barrel-roll barrage. At the same moment Robin kept Skulker's attention fractured—smoke bombs bursting in choking clouds, ghost-ray blasts hammering the exo-suit's shields from shifting angles.
Danny ran a glowing palm along the length of his own sword. Neon-green ectoplasmic fire erupted along the blade. With a sharp twist of his wrist he sent the flaming weapon spinning through the air in a perfect arc toward Robin.
Robin caught the sword by the hilt mid-flight, using its momentum to redirect the burning steel toward Batman's path. Batman—already closer to the Ghost Hunter—vaulted off a telekinetic platform Danny had formed beneath his boots. He twisted in midair, catching the flaming blade in a reverse grip, and came down from above like a falling star.
The coordinated barrage from Danny and Robin forced Skulker's attention just long enough. Batman drove the sword straight into the only vulnerable opening he could find—the glowing optical sensor that served as one of the exo-suit's eyes.
"Arghhh!"
The cry was more shock than pain. Inside the cockpit, the tiny spectral form of Skulker had thrown himself clear of the blade a fraction of a second before it impaled his seat. He clutched at his chest, translucent form flickering, as though an invisible heart were hammering against his ribs.
Enraged, the small ghost slammed back into the controls. The exo-suit's massive power fist drove forward with hydraulic fury, catching Batman square in the abdomen. The impact forced the air from the Dark Knight's lungs in a single explosive rush. Armor plating cracked. Batman's body folded around the blow and rocketed downward at terrifying speed.
He hit the street hard, rolled end over end, slammed into the hood of a running car hard enough to crumple the metal, flipped over it, and finally skidded to a stop against the asphalt. Blood stained the corners of his mouth. For a long, painful moment he simply stared up at the night sky, the question flickering through his mind of what it was exactly that he was doing with his life.
Tucker landed in a hurried, slightly stumbling descent beside him and immediately reached down to help him back to his feet. A short distance away Sam was already guiding a shaken driver away from the wrecked vehicle, one hand glowing faintly violet as she checked for injuries.
Skulker ripped the flaming katana free from his ruined optical sensor and now held both swords again, green fire still licking along the stolen blade.
Robin and Danny refused to give him breathing room. Danny opened his mouth and unleashed the Ghostly Wail, modulating the frequency in rapid, jagged shifts, trying to overload the exo-suit's systems. But Skulker was moving faster than sound itself. No matter how Danny altered the pitch, the hunter simply outran the waves. Robin's gadgets—grappling lines, explosive pellets, freezing foam—only slowed him for fractions of a second before he tore free again.
From the street below, Sam and Tucker looked up with growing concern. They watched Danny and Robin get blasted backward, recover, charge in again, only to be driven back once more in the same brutal cycle.
"Danny is right," Batman rasped as he pulled free of Tucker's supporting grip. Pain still edged every word. "You two should leave. It isn't safe for either of you. You aren't ready yet—"
"We're not leaving," Sam cut in, voice sharp with frustrated resolve. "We're tired of hiding what we know from him and sitting on the sidelines."
Batman said nothing more. He simply swept his cape around his body in a single fluid motion. The fabric shimmered—and then he was gone, completely invisible. Only his voice remained, carried on the night wind like a ghost's warning.
"You'd only get in the way."
A heartbeat later the Dark Knight reappeared beside Danny and Robin, already taking command of the battle once more.
"Take the fight away from the public eye," he ordered, voice low and absolute. "We're only putting civilians at risk here."
Danny and Robin didn't argue. In perfect sync they drove Skulker eastward across the skyline, toward the industrial sprawl of Ace Chemical—where the city lights grew sparse and the consequences of their war would at least fall on empty warehouses instead of crowded streets.
At this hour the sprawling complex of Ace Chemical was little more than a skeleton of rusted pipes, silent smokestacks, and empty loading yards. The night wind carried the faint, acrid tang of old solvents and metal. No workers. No security patrols. No witnesses. Perfect.
Even so, Skulker was finding it harder and harder to keep the three of them at bay. Every time he raised a shield, another angle of attack found a gap. Every time he countered one, the other two were already moving.
Far behind the streaking lights of the battle, Sam and Tucker struggled to close the distance. The sheer speed at which Danny, Batman, and Robin were fighting made the gap feel wider with every second.
"Maybe we really are out of our depth here, Sam," Tucker muttered, frowning as the glowing figures grew smaller against the industrial skyline. Watching them pull away felt like watching a living reflection of where he and Sam still stood—always a step too late, always a little too far behind.
"Don't quit on me now, Tucker," Sam shot back, voice sharp with the same frustration he felt but refused to surrender to. "What about all the training we did? Was that just for nothing? So you could bail before we've even done anything?"
Tucker's fingers tightened around the strap of his backpack. No answer came.
Sam's eyes flashed. "If your resolve to help Danny is really that weak, then you might as well turn around right now."
She accelerated, violet light flaring brighter around her as she left him behind.
Tucker froze midair for a heartbeat. He watched Danny's distant form vanish deeper into the chemical plant… and then watched Sam do the same, leaving him alone in the open sky.
He chewed the inside of his lip hard enough to taste copper. "What the hell am I even doing…"
In a sudden burst of self-directed anger he yanked off his glasses, clenched his fist, and punched himself square in the cheek. The impact cracked through the quiet night. Immediate heat bloomed across his face—a promise of the swelling that would come later. The pain was a reminder of the strength he had accumulated up until now. He wasn't the same helpless kid who used to hide behind Danny and Sam. Even that weaker version of himself had possessed more courage than the hesitation choking him now.
He shoved his glasses back into place, eyes hardening.
"Seriously… was all that training just so I could turn into a coward the second the chance to actually do something showed up? How pathetic."
The winged shoes on his feet beat harder, stronger, faster. "Wait for me!" he shouted, voice cutting across the rooftops as he rocketed after them. "Don't you dare count me out just yet!"
Ahead of him, Sam heard the shout. A small, fierce smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth—but she didn't slow down.
Meanwhile the fight inside the chemical plant had grown even more frantic. Danny was generating more and more clones, trying to bury Skulker under sheer numbers. Yet the longer the battle dragged on, the more data the exo-suit quietly harvested. Every response to a blast. Every shift in formation. Every reaction under pressure. Strength, speed, timing, composure—all of it was being recorded, measured, catalogued.
Danny tried to slam a glowing containment cube down around the hunter. Skulker's katana flashed; the cube split cleanly in two before it could close. Robin managed to snare one of the exo-suit's arms with a high-tensile tether—only for the armor to discharge a violent electric surge. The jolt tore through Robin's body and hurled him backward through a cluster of rusted pipes.
Robin clicked his tongue in irritation, flipped midair, and rejoined the assault without missing a beat.
Skulker retaliated with a concentrated blast meant to knock Danny out of the sky. The half-ghost simply vanished, reappearing directly behind him. Skulker's armored boot lashed out in a reverse kick, but Danny met it with a tight cross-guard, absorbing the force without being thrown far. In the same motion he seized the extended leg, spun with the momentum, and hurled the massive exo-suit toward the rapidly approaching Robin.
Robin came in like a missile, neon-green energy wreathed around his fist. The Superman punch landed with a thunderous crack that echoed off the chemical tanks. Skulker's body was launched backward again—straight into Batman's waiting path. The Dark Knight dropped from above in a devastating axe kick, driving the hunter down through the entrance of a long-abandoned industrial building. Concrete and metal screamed under the impact.
Skulker groaned on the cracked floor, exo-suit sparking. Then a calm, mechanical voice chimed inside his helmet.
"Analysis complete. Countermeasures ready."
A slow, ear-splitting grin spread across the tiny spectral face inside the cockpit. Without another word, Skulker's armored form sank into the concrete as though it were water, vanishing completely underground and leaving only silence and settling dust behind.
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