Although Barbara didn't have much strength—just an ordinary human's at best—her timing was impeccable.
She struck at the exact moment when Killer Croc's old momentum had spent itself and new power had yet to surge.
"Huh?" Croc grunted, mid-charge. His right leg suddenly jerked tight as the whip coiled around it, halting his stride for a split second.
A perfect opening.
From her hiding spot, Catwoman's eyes flashed. Her teammate had created the opportunity she'd been waiting for. No hesitation—she leapt high, two throwing knives flashing from her hands toward Croc's unarmored eyes. In the same motion, she flicked her own whip, wrapping it around his left leg.
That whip, ironically, was a gift from Bruce Wayne himself—one of those "romantic gestures" that were useless on dates but priceless in battle.
Robin, meanwhile, was in rough shape.
He'd taken several of Croc's blows earlier. Though his armor had spared him from broken bones, the bruising beneath it was deep and vicious. The monster's raw strength was overwhelming—each punch like a battering ram.
But seeing his teammates both spring into action, he forced himself upright.
He couldn't let the women do all the work—not when they were clearly trying to redeem their earlier embarrassment in front of him. The only man in the team couldn't afford to lag behind.
He sidestepped, circled behind Croc, and threw a heavy punch straight at the back of his neck.
Killing wasn't an option—not for a Bat. Robin still followed that code to the letter. To him, the ideal fight ended with the villain unconscious, not dead.
A clean knockout—no blood, no death, just justice served.
And normally, hitting a man at the base of the neck would do exactly that.
It's a move you see in every movie: the silent ambusher standing behind the target, one swift strike, and down he goes. Sure, the screenwriters made it look too easy, but the principle was sound—hit the right nerve cluster with enough force, and the lights go out.
Robin had the training, the precision, and the confidence.
What he didn't have was the right kind of opponent.
Because Killer Croc, whatever else he told himself, hadn't been "normal" in a long time.
Oh, emotionally? He'd insist he was human.
He still thought it was perfectly normal to roll in the mud every morning, or to snack on raw fish like it was sushi hour. He'd even convinced himself that people who smeared mud on their faces and called it "seaweed clay masks" were the weird ones.
Once, he'd spied a group of short, yellow-skinned tourists eating sashimi and dancing afterward, and he'd felt… pity. Poor souls, he'd thought. Can't even afford to cook their food. Out of charity, he'd tossed them a few extra fish.
In his mind, his life wasn't strange at all. Society just refused to see it.
And that, ironically, was the clearest sign of how far gone he really was.
At Arkham, the worst cases were always the ones who insisted, "I'm not crazy!"
The ones who said nothing—just quietly studying guard rotations, plotting escape routes—those were the sane ones.
Croc belonged to the first group.
He claimed to be human, but physiologically, he was already something else. His DNA had drifted far from the human baseline—two evolutionary streets away, and still mutating. If his regression continued unchecked, in twenty years he'd no longer be a man at all, just a hulking, mindless predator.
But that was the future.
For now, he was still aware enough to feel pain—a lot of it.
Robin's punch landed hard on the back of his neck, right where Croc's thick spine met the base of his skull.
It was the perfect blow… except for one inconvenient fact.
Croc's anatomy wasn't built like a human's.
In reptiles, especially crocodiles, there's a dense knot of neural tissue near the spine that coordinates balance and movement—like a biological switchboard. It's buried deep beneath armored scales.
Experienced hunters know the spot well: strike or stab it, and the creature instantly paralyzes. But only if you can pierce that armor.
Robin didn't have a blade. Just his bare fist.
So instead of knocking Croc out, he triggered an entirely different reaction.
Agonizing, blinding pain.
The punch sent a shockwave through Croc's massive frame. His limbs spasmed, and the monster let out a guttural howl, collapsing to the ground.
Then, with no concern for dignity, he started rolling—thrashing wildly, clutching his head, roaring in agony.
The three heroes froze.
That… was not what they expected.
Robin blinked. Wait, what? That should've dropped him.
Instead, the monster looked like a dying walrus having a meltdown.
Barbara and Catwoman, realizing the danger of those flailing limbs, recoiled fast, reeling in their whips before they could get dragged down.
From above, Sia's eyes lit up.
Perfect.
This was it—the opening she'd been waiting for.
The monster was down, the team was clear, and his defenses were wide open.
Balancing ten meters in the air on her hoverboard, she leaned forward, body taut, eyes narrowing behind her visor.
She guided the board in a swift glide, closing the distance to thirty meters—close enough for precision, but far enough to stay out of the stench.
She sniffed once—no foul odor yet. Good.
She could've shot from a hundred meters away, easily. But teamwork mattered, and she wasn't about to make herself look too aloof. Her allies were all within range of Croc's mess; she might as well share the "group experience."
Nocking a shimmering blue arrow, she drew back the string, adjusted for trajectory and wind, and whispered to herself:
"Let's cool you off."
Thwip!
The arrow streaked forward, cutting through the humid air—aimed squarely at Killer Croc's leg.
Sia didn't intend to kill him. Not with these saintly Gotham teammates watching.
She'd settle for something simple and elegant—immobilization.
Let the ice do the talking.