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No one was safe.
Heroes and villains alike were being targeted. Good and evil placed upon the same scale. Both righteous and dastardly deeds were judged critically before being condemned.
The scales must be perfectly even.
Without the Balance, chaos reigns. And that wouldn’t be tolerated.
...Or at least that’s what the wacko wearing a yin-and-yang suit was spewing. He just kept prattling on and Jason was having a really, really hard time paying attention. However, that was probably due to the blood loss rather than boredom.
It had been a normal night with an uneventful patrol. A night where it was completely unnecessary to have Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Robin out and about. At least it had been until the demon brat said something about wanting a challenge and jinxed them to high hell because that was the moment they were swamped.
First it was Two Face trying to rob Gotham Bank (again. He really needed to try something new). Then it was Riddler setting up shop in the sewers. And then they had to rescue Riddler from Croc (maybe next time he won’t invade another crook’s turf). And then this pretentious bastard shows up, teleports them to a deserted factory in chains, and starts ranting about evening the scales and fixing the universe or something.
Throughout the night, everyone had slowly been accumulating injuries. Bruce had a concussion. Dick had a broken rib. Tim was totally covered in bruises. Sweet, sadistic little Damian willingly took a knife to the arm in order to successfully get the drop on Croc. As for Jason himself, well, he totally won the injury lottery. He’d been shot thrice, stabbed in the back, and taken a bad hit to the chest. Unfortunately, he’d had to tank both Croc and Riddler while the rest of the Bats did damage control since the sewer was collapsing. He will not be doing that again.
If he survives this at least. All the Bats were lined up shoulder to shoulder with their arms chained to the floor behind them. Jason himself was slumped forward as far as the chains would allow. He watched in morbid fascination as his blood pooled beneath him. Every breath was agony and shot fire through his veins to connect all the rest of his injuries. If this guy decided to use him as a punching bag, he’d probably end up with a punctured lung too. So, all things considered, they’d been in worse situations!
Today wouldn’t be the day the mighty Batman fell.
Through the haze of his own mind, he heard Batman demanding to know the man’s name and Dick desperately asking if he was ok.
“I am Equinox,” the far too calm voice said. “I brought you here to restore balance. The scales must be even,” Jason was pretty sure that was the third time the guy’s said that, “and you all must choose.”
The eerie silence that followed was eventually broken by the ever-curious Tim. “And in what way will we be doing that?”
The man’s dissimilar eyes felt like they stared into their very souls before he finally said, “There must be balance. You had it, but you disrupted that balance by bringing in a new Bat.” Equinox loomed over Damian, making it completely clear that he was displeased by the child’s existence. “Four is what is required for the Balance. No more. The number must be even. Batman alone was inadequate for the city. When the first Robin appeared, there was a balance in the even number. But then there was a third. The Balance was skewed. It tried to fix it in Ethiopia, but he came back. But by then, there was a fourth. The Balance was satisfied. Once again, the Bats were even. However, another Bat flew into the night. One. Must. Go.”
“What, so you want one of us to retire,” Dick said. Confusion and a hint of anger colored his tone.
“No, one must go. I am granting you the opportunity to deliberate and choose who will go. If you don’t, I will simply remove the newest member. We already have the detectives and the chosen. Two even sets. There’s no room for an assassin. So, who will go?” Everything was said almost clinically, but you couldn’t mistake the ‘holier than thou’ words spilling from him.
Jason felt sick both at the cavalier mention of his murder and that Equinox was insinuating that Damian would die for his own messed up ideal.
“We will not sacrifice anyone solely because some zealot demands it,” Bruce immediately spat out. The gloves were apparently off because there was no trace of his usual, grim calm.
Milliseconds later, Dick said earnestly, “Me. I’ll go. Take me.” Jason’s stomach plummeted at the desperation in his voice. The self-sacrificing jerk.
Suddenly, the world went cold and he barely registered the voices overlapping to refute Dick’s decision. Everything seemed to be muted and distant. Everything except for the steady drip of his blood.
No, Batman wouldn’t fall tonight. And neither would his brothers.
With a stronger voice than he thought he could muster, he said, “Me. You should take me. The Balance has already chosen me once and it’s only right that its decision is respected. There will still be two even sets: The Bats related by blood and the Bats best in their respective fields. My presence is irrelevant for the Balance.”
“No, Jason!” “Nonsense, you buffoon!” “We’ll find another way!” “Don’t talk like that!”
The voices of his family once again overlapped, but Jason cut them off. “I’m dying anyway! Even if we get out of this, I wouldn’t make it back to the cave. This– this is for the best.”
“Is that your final decision?” Equinox was now looming over him. His stupid black and white boots were now painted with crimson as he stopped in the growing puddle of blood.
Jason steeled his courage and looked into the monster’s empty, star-shaped eye.
“Yes.”