Human Abilities Have Their Limits

Blüdhaven Police Station

"His name is Mark Desmond. He's a chemist with no criminal record." Nightwing handed Roland a file. "This is a photo of him from before. He was still very thin back then."

"...I'm telling you, that isn't him." Roland stared at the wise-looking professor in the photograph. No matter how he looked at it, the man didn't match the bald, muscular brute at all.

"I think so too, but the fingerprint and retinal comparisons prove they're the same person." Nightwing frowned. "I'm curious—how did he end up like this?"

"I'm pretty curious too." Roland nodded. "Could he have been taking steroids?"

"Is that some kind of bodybuilding joke?" Nightwing chuckled. "But what I'm even more curious about is how you defeated him so easily, Priest. Don't tell me you really have some kind of divine power?"

"Me? I was simply born with extraordinary strength." Roland's eyes shifted. "Besides, he'd already been in a car accident and was seriously injured. Maybe he would have collapsed after a while even if I hadn't done anything."

"Is that so?" Nightwing gave Roland a meaningful look. "You were the one who hit him with the car earlier too, weren't you?"

"How could that be...?"

"I happen to have footage from the road. Want to take a look?"

"Well, I didn't notice anyone there at the time. I thought it was a speed bump, so I drove right over it." Roland explained, "Then, after I stopped, I saw that he wasn't seriously hurt, so I left without bothering with him."

"Is that so?" Nightwing didn't pursue the matter. Instead, he asked about something else. "Looking at your truck's license plate, you should have come from Gotham City, right?"

"Yes." Roland nodded.

"What brought you here?"

"I got a shipment of cheap fur and came here to sell it."

"Oh... Isn't your price a little too low?"

"The economy isn't doing well, and business is difficult."

"Your truck's rear tire blew out before you came here. It was shot out with a rifle, wasn't it? Can you tell me what happened?"

"It's Gotham. It's pretty chaotic there, so things like that are normal." Feeling a little guilty under Nightwing's questions, Roland decided to go on the offensive. "You should know that. Didn't you come from Gotham City too?"

"How do you know?" Nightwing froze. After coming to Blüdhaven and striking out on his own, he had never revealed his identity as Robin. How did this priest know?

"Bruce and I are friends. Of course I know about you." Roland invoked Batman's name. "You're Dick Grayson. You used to be a circus acrobat, then Bruce adopted you and you became the Original Robin. Am I right?"

"He told you all that?" Nightwing believed that Roland really did have a deep relationship with Batman. Otherwise, he wouldn't have known those secrets.

Batman had indeed wanted to form a team to deal with potential crises. Could this priest be one of its members?

"Of course. We're friends who've been through life and death together." Roland nodded.

"Then your purpose in coming to Blüdhaven probably isn't as simple as you make it sound, is it?" Nightwing began to think, but no matter how he considered it, he couldn't figure out what Roland was really here for.

It couldn't really be that he came to get rid of a shipment of goods of questionable origin at a low price, could it?

"That's a secret." Roland put on an enigmatic expression.

"Hmm, but I'll find out." Nightwing smiled confidently. "After all, this is Blüdhaven."

"Maybe." Roland shrugged. He'd have to be a god to guess it. Who would imagine that a friend of Bruce's had come to the city next to Gotham to fence stolen goods?

"Ha..." Nightwing could tell that Roland didn't believe him, but it didn't matter. Roland was sure to leave traces behind during his stay in Blüdhaven, and Nightwing was confident he could determine Roland's intentions from them.

"By the way, can I leave now?" Roland asked.

"Sure. I'll show you out." Nightwing rose and opened the door for Roland.

"You seem to have a pretty good relationship with the police here?" Roland walked out of the Police Station. He hadn't had to complete any paperwork, and none of the officers had tried to stop him from leaving. "It's quite different from Bruce."

"Corruption isn't as serious on our side, and I've reached a certain level of cooperation with the Blüdhaven Police Station." Nightwing explained. "Come on. I'll walk you out."

"Sure." Roland and Nightwing entered the garage together. After chatting for a while, they said their goodbyes.

Roland started the truck, waved to Nightwing, and drove away.

"Wait, did I forget something?" Roland lit a cigarette while driving. The smoke ring he exhaled suddenly warped. "Damn, that kid Jason hasn't gotten in the truck yet!"

Half an hour later

"You're unbelievable..." Jason stood outside the Police Station, his face bruised and swollen, glaring resentfully at Roland as he drove over to pick him up. "I'm a living, breathing person, and you didn't even notice I wasn't in the truck?"

"Ahem... I got caught up chatting." Roland felt a little awkward, so he changed the subject. "What happened to you? Did someone beat you up?"

"No. I fell."

"You fell face-first into someone's fist?" Roland shot Jason a sidelong glance.

"Nightwing did it."

"Why did the two of you start fighting?" Roland asked in confusion. "He doesn't seem like the type to bully children."

"You said he was really strong, so I wanted to test him..."

"Then you've got a pretty hard head." Roland laughed. "Well? Convinced now?"

"Tsk... I'll train hard when I get back."

"Sure, but if you want to reach Nightwing's level, who knows how long that'll take." Roland said, "He's basically at the peak of human ability. I've learned one thing from my short life: human abilities have limits, unless you surpass humanity."

"What exactly are you trying to say?" Jason asked. "...Are you telling me to stop being human?"

"Surpass humanity—one path relies on technology, and the other on mutation." Roland said, "Take Mark Desmond, whom I dealt with today. He must have used some kind of drug to become like that."

"That guy's physical abilities really were terrifying." Jason nodded. "But his intelligence... He felt barely smarter than a fool."

"There are ways to become stronger without side effects, but we can't get our hands on them yet." Roland thought for a moment. "There's also technology, like Batman's amazing gadgets. Even if you were ten times stronger than him in hand-to-hand combat, you could still lose if you challenged Batman to a fight."

"Besides that, you can cling to someone powerful. Take Poison Ivy, for example. She's the representative of some mysterious force of nature, which is why she has superpowers."

"Are you like her?" Jason asked. "Stronger abilities keep popping up from you too."

"More or less." Roland shrugged. "I run with God."