DC: The Man And The Hood Chapter 47: The Punishment Due

The jungle swallowed them whole as Jason and Deathstroke circled each other, their boots sinking slightly into the damp earth.

Around them, the air hung thick with the scent of crushed foliage and gunpowder residue. Sowhere beyond the dense canopy, the distant staccato of gunfire and shouted orders reminded them this was just one battle within a war—but for these two, it was the only one that mattered.

Deathstroke made the first move, his twin swords cutting through the humid air with a tallic hiss.

Jason barely got his blade up in ti, the impact vibrating through his arms as he skidded back a step.

His heel caught on an exposed root, sending him stumbling against a moss-covered tree trunk. The bark bit into his shoulders through his combat vest.

"Running out of room, kid," Deathstroke taunted, advancing with the steady rhythm of a predator. Sunlight filtering through the leaves painted jagged patterns across his armored chest.

Jason's fingers found a thick vine hanging beside his head. As Deathstroke lunged, Jason yanked hard.

The vine snapped taut just as Deathstroke's sword arm ca down—the fibrous plant wrapped around his wrist mid-swing, jerking his attack off-course. The blade buried itself deep into the tree trunk beside Jason's ear, close enough that he felt the wind of its passing.

In that split second of distraction, Jason's free hand went to his hip. The pistol cleared its holster with practiced ease.

Two rapid shots punched into Deathstroke's torso at point-blank range—only for the bullets to ricochet off with tallic pings, leaving barely a dent in the advanced body armor.

Jason didn't hesitate. He adjusted his aim upward and fired again at the unprotected head.

Deathstroke moved with terrifying speed. His entire body coiled and dropped low, the third bullet whining past where his skull had been a heartbeat before. The sudden movent tore the vine free from Jason's grip, sending him off-balance.

Before Jason could recover, Deathstroke released his embedded sword and lunged forward in a spear tackle. His shoulder connected with Jason's midsection like a battering ram, driving the air from his lungs as they crashed to the ground. Damp soil and rotting leaves sprayed upward from the impact.

Jason tasted blood in his mouth as Deathstroke's weight pinned him down. Two hamr-like punches rocked his head against the ground—the first splitting his lip, the second making his vision swim with black spots.

Then Jason's fingers found the hidden sleeve dagger. The blade slid free with a whisper of tal on fabric before burying itself to the hilt in Deathstroke's thigh. A grunt of pain escaped the rcenary as Jason twisted the knife viciously, feeling the specially tempered League steel tear through muscle and fabric alike.

Deathstroke rolled off with a snarl, yanking the blade free with one gloved hand. Blood welled from the wound, darkening his pants leg as he tossed the knife aside. It landed with a soft thunk in a nearby fern.

"You're learning," Deathstroke admitted, retrieving his sword from the tree with a sharp tug. The blade showed no damage—whatever alloy it was forged from seed just as resilient as the League's own tallurgy. "But lessons like this tend to be fatal."

Jason spat blood as he scrambled to his feet, his own sword finding his hand again. The jungle around them seed to hold its breath, the usual chorus of insects and birds silenced by the violence. Sowhere deeper in the forest, the occasional clash of steel suggested Jones was still occupied with Nyssa's assassin.

"Funny," Jason said, assessing his jaw for damages. "I was about to say the sa thing."

They charged at each other again, blades flashing in the dappled light.

The kick landed like a sledgehamr to Jason's ribs, lifting him clean off his feet. He tasted copper as blood sprayed against the inside of his mask, the warm tallic tang flooding his mouth.

The world tilted as he crashed back-first into a towering mahogany tree, its rough bark scraping through his combat vest. Splinters rained down around him as the impact shook loose decades of accumulated moss.

Deathstroke didn't let up. He ca in like a storm, his twin swords carving deadly arcs through the humid jungle air.

Each parry sent shockwaves up Jason's arms, the rcenary's enhanced strength turning every block into a battle of attrition.

Between strikes, Deathstroke peppered in brutal efficiency: a knee to the ribs here, an elbow to the collarbone there. Jason's left arm went montarily numb from a perfectly placed pressure point strike.

"Fuck!" Jason spat, rolling sideways just as a sword bit deep into the tree where his head had been. The curse wasn't just from the pain, it was frustration at himself. He'd trained for this. Prepared for this. And still, he was barely holding on.

Deathstroke's chuckle was muffled by his mask but no less mocking. "Co on boy, is this all you've got?" He pressed forward, his boots crushing ferns into the damp earth. "I have to say I'm disappointed. The old man raised such a weakling.

Sothing inside Jason snapped.

The jungle sounds faded away. The ever-present ache in his ribs disappeared. Even the taste of blood beca distant. All that remained was white-hot rage, bubbling up from so dark pit in his soul he'd kept chained for too long.

"You think your test tube enhancents make you superior?" Jason pushed off the tree, his breathing steady despite the blood trickling down his chin. "You're just a governnt's failed experint. Everything impressive about you ca from a syringe."

The change was imdiate. Jason's stance shifted, his grip on the sword adjusting subtly.

Where before there had been controlled fury, now there was sothing primal, but frighteningly focused. The Lazarus Pit's influence, usually kept carefully leashed, now flowed through him like dark electricity.

Deathstroke actually took half a step back, his remaining eye narrowing behind the mask. "There it is," he murmured, adjusting his grip on his swords. "Those eyes finally show what you really are."

Jason didn't charge blindly. That was the terrifying part. When he moved, it was with lethal precision, a horizontal slash that morphed mid-swing into a vicious thrust from an unexpected angle.

Deathstroke barely got his second blade up in ti, the parry sending sparks flying as the edges screeched against each other.

The rhythm of the fight changed. Jason's attacks beca unpredictable, his feints more convincing, his recoveries impossibly fast.

Where Deathstroke had relied on brute strength before, now he found himself actually working to keep up. A particularly clever reversal nearly took his remaining eye - the blade tip leaving a thin red line across his cheekbone before he jerked back.

For the first ti, Deathstroke felt sothing akin to respect. This wasn't mindless rage, it was being wielded.

Every ounce of Jason's Lazarus-induced bloodlust was being channeled, focused, and directed with terrifying efficiency.

Their blades locked again, faces inches apart. Jason's eyes burned with green-tinged fury behind his mask. Deathstroke's single eye glead with sothing between amusent and genuine surprise.

"Now this," Deathstroke grunted as he shoved Jason back, "is more like what I expected from Ra's al Ghul's pet."

Jason didn't respond with words. He responded with a sudden knee to Deathstroke's thigh, right where the knife wound still seeped blood. As the rcenary staggered, Jason spun, his elbow connecting with the side of Deathstroke's head hard enough to make his ears ring.

The playing field had leveled. No more predators and preys. Just two killers in a jungle, each refusing to die.

The stalemate stretched between them like a taut wire, both fighters breathing heavily in the salty ocean air as they lost daylight and and now fought in moonlight.

Jason's muscles burned from the constant strain of deflecting Deathstroke's overwhelming strength, but he'd found his rhythm, using his agility to dance just outside the rcenary's most devastating swings while countering with precise strikes of his own.

Their blades t again in a shower of sparks, the tallic shriek echoing across the clifftop. In the split-second pause that followed, Jason's free hand flashed to his hip. The pistol cleared its holster with practiced ease, its muzzle already swinging up as his finger found the trigger.

Three shots rang out in rapid succession. Even at point-blank range, the bullets rely dented Deathstroke's advanced body armor, but the kinetic force was enough to make the larger man stagger back a step, his boot scraping against the rocky outcrop.

Jason saw the counterattack coming before Deathstroke fully committed. The second sword ca around in a blinding arc, aid to sever his gun arm at the elbow.

There was no ti to dodge, only to react. He brought the pistol up in a desperate block, the blade shearing through the weapon's fra with a horrible grinding noise before he threw himself backward.

"Damn." Jason tossed the ruined firearm aside, watching as its pieces tumbled over the cliff edge into the churning waves below. The taste of salt spray mixed with the coppery blood in his mouth as he regained his footing.

They stood now on an exposed section of the headland, the ground uneven with weather-worn stone and patches of stubborn sea grass.

Behind them, the cliff dropped away sharply to where white-capped waves smashed against jagged rocks fifty feet below. No trees. No cover. Just open sky and the endless ocean stretching to the horizon.

Deathstroke's next series of attacks lacked their usual surgical precision. Jason noticed the slight tremor in his opponent's sword arm, the way his footwork had beco half a beat slower.

When Jason landed a solid kick to Deathstroke's ribs, he felt the satisfying give of armor plating under his boot - and sothing more concerning. The rcenary's breathing had taken on a ragged edge beneath that mask.

"You're starting to feel it now, aren't you?" Jason wiped blood from his chin which dripped behind his mask with the back of his hand, allowing himself a grim smile. "Well, took you long enough."

Deathstroke's remaining eye narrowed as he processed the symptoms, the creeping numbness in his extremities, the way his vision kept trying to double. Then it clicked. "The knife," he growled. "You poisoned the blade."

Jason didn't deny it. He simply adjusted his grip on his sword, watching as Deathstroke's enhanced tabolism fought against the toxin coursing through his veins. The fact the man was still standing at all was testant to those super-soldier enhancents.

For a brief mont, tactical logic warred with pride behind Deathstroke's mask. Retreat would be the smart play, regroup, find an antidote. But the idea of withdrawing from a fight with this upstart?

Unthinkable. His reputation had been built on impossible victories. Besides, his modified biology was buying him ti. Not much, but enough.

The cliff's edge crumbled beneath Jason's boots as he skidded backward, gravel spraying from his heels. Moonlight bled through the storm clouds above, casting jagged shadows across Deathstroke's armored form. The rcenary's swords glead wetly—whether from sea spray or blood, Jason couldn't tell. Probably both.

"You punk." The words tore from Deathstroke's modulator in a staticky snarl. Even through the pain of his poisoned system, the man moved like a machine, muscles coiling as he raised both blades high.

Jason barely got his sword up in ti.

The collision of steel sent shockwaves down his arms. His boots slid another inch toward the precipice as Deathstroke leaned into the strike, putting his full weight behind the blow. Jason's knees hit stone with a crack that reverberated through his bones.

"You see, boy?" Deathstroke's breath hitched—just slightly—betraying the toxin's work. But his voice remained iron. "You're nothing compared to ."

A twist of his wrists, and Jason's guard shattered.

He hit the ground hard, lungs emptying in a rush. Before he could roll, Deathstroke pivoted, his combat boot carving through the air in a vicious arc aid at Jason's temple.

He let himself fall completely flat, the kick whistling overhead as his fingers found the hilt of his combat knife. The mont Deathstroke's montum carried him past, Jason exploded upward in a spray of loose shale, leading with the blade.

Steel t flesh with a wet crunch.

The knife bit deep behind Deathstroke's knee, parting kevlar, muscle, and finally the pulsing vein beneath. Hot blood sheeted down the rcenary's leg as his joint buckled.

"You fucking brat." Deathstroke hit one knee with a tallic clang, but his swords never stopped moving. They wove a deadly lattice in the air between them, each slash forcing Jason back half a step.

Jason parried high, then low, feeling the rhythm of Deathstroke's attacks shift—the poison and blood loss making him fractionally slower. Just enough.

He feinted left, then drove his knee up into Deathstroke's masked face. The impact jolted up his leg as the reinforced nose guard crumpled inward. Blood sprayed the inside of Deathstroke's visor in a crimson web.

Still, the bastard wouldn't fall.

Jason didn't hesitate. His knife hand shot forward, the blade sinking to the hilt just below Deathstroke's sternum. The resistance gave way with a sickening pop of parting tissue.

"This is for Ra's." Jason twisted the knife as he spoke, the words coming out in a graveled growl that barely sounded human.

He yanked the blade free in ti to see Deathstroke's remaining eye widen behind the mask. Jason's sword arm rose for the decapitating strike—when the first bullet took him in the shoulder.

The impact spun him like a top. His sword clattered across the rocks as his back hit dirt. Through the ringing in his ears, Jason registered two things: Deathstroke finally collapsing onto his back, Jason's knife still protruding from his gut, and the complete absence of muzzle flashes in the surrounding darkness.

Then the second bullet punched through his chest.

Jason's breath ca in wet, ragged pulls as he staggered upright. No single shooter—this was a coordinated killbox.

His vision swam as he tried to triangulate the angles. Blood slicked his gloves as he slowly made to the edge of the cliff with his back faced towards the open ocean.

Left with just one option if he had any intention of survival, the rocks gave way beneath him.

For one weightless mont, Jason hung in the air, salt wind tearing at his clothes. Then gravity took hold.

The ocean rose to et him like a concrete wall. Icy water drove the air from his lungs as the impact drove him deep beneath the surface. Currents clawed at his limbs, dragging him down into the lightless depths.

Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision as the cold seeped into his bones. So distant part of him noted the irony—Deathstroke still breathing while he sank toward the abyss.

His last conscious thought wasn't fear, or even anger. Just quiet annoyance that he hadn't finished the job.

Then the blackness took him, and Jason stopped fighting.

After all, it wouldn't be his first ti being craddled in death's cold embrace.

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